Systems Research Group

Projects

Click HERE for a list of systems research projects

Research Areas

Integrating Systems Thinking

For many years systems methodology has been devised by and branded to particular functional activities such as engineering, social science or biological systems. In many branches of engineering the focus has been on (hard) physical systems that are so complicated as to require rigorous systems engineering tools and techniques for their design. In Civil engineering the complexity tends to arise from the (soft) people orientated context which is systemic to the context and execution of the engineering. A systems thinking philosophy of integration based on purpose, process, people and performance has been the foundation of most of the systems groups research and teaching over the past 15 years. This approach is consistent with the recently published Royal Academy of Engineering, 6 principles for “Creating Systems that Work”.

Sustainable Systems

Sustainability is an emergent property (outcome) of the relationship between the (soft and hard) components of systems. The complexity of processes required to deliver sustainable development is substantially increased by the need to deliver sustainable outcomes. Systems thinking techniques are being applied to a range of issues in collaboration with partners. The Royal Academy has funded Bristol to set up 3 visiting professorships in sustainable systems so as to integrate knowledge from infrastructure, defence and energy industries. The outcome will be a fund of openly available case histories and teaching material as well as a masters level e-learning teaching unit.

Eco-community Research

The systems group is a founding member of the EPSRC Dongtan Network and an active member of two of the three sub-networks. It has been asked to lead the establishment of a research programme with a working title “Learning to be an Ecocity - Dongtan”. Working with Arup and other universities including Tonji in Shanghai, this collaborative programme will integrate both soft social science techniques and hard processes such as emissions measurement. The benefit will be feedback of learning into: the community, governance and planning of subsequent phases of Dongtan and to identify generic processes and principles so as to facilitate transfer of learning to and from other eco community developments.

Change Management

The construction industry has been in a state of rapid change over the past decade. The Systems group has been involved in supporting change management programmes on an activity based learning basis. Involvements have included: Heathrow Terminal 5, Halcrow - Act now! Highways Agency – Best Value Procurement. Products of the research include an award winning book “Doing it Differently - Systems for Rethinking Construction”, plus a fund of teaching material and case examples that are used at undergraduate and postgraduate level as well as in support of industry, not only in UK but also in Hong Kong and the Antipodies.

Opportunity Risk Management

Opportunity risk management has been the cornerstone of much of the systems research undertaken. Members of the Systems group have undertaken behavioural research that has been the foundation of definitive guidance including most recently ‘STRATrisk - a guide for directors’ STRATrisk is a subgroup of RAMP Risk Analysis and Management for Projects. Both are working groups of the Institute of Actuaries and the Institution of Civil Engineers.

Problem Structuring Methods are a family of approaches for addressing problems that are complex in both their technical issues and their human interactions. They use a mixture of quantitative and qualitative modelling techniques to handle risk and uncertainty where the information is often sparse incomplete and even conflicting. The research group has developed significant generic tools including the PeriMeta software which has a unique combination of problem structuring through hierarchical process models with a built in evidence weighting system. It manages performance indicators and recent extensions include an argumentation structure based on the IBIS approach. The ideas have been adopted by organisations across the world and the group is currently involved with case studies involving the Highways Agency, the Environment Agency, PA Consulting and a number of leading Oil companies.

Performance Management

Performance measurement and targets are very much in vogue at the moment but research is showing that there is a distinct lack of understanding of the purpose and use of performance measures and the perverse effect they can have if not used well. Research, which is essentially on the socio-technical boundary, part funded by WS Atkins, is examining the underlying assumptions of the discipline and proposing principles for its successful use. Work with Balfour Beatty is looking at the whole life risk aspects of the problem. The particular focus in both these projects.

Vulnerability and Robustness of Structures

There is a recognised need to design structures to be robust and to avoid possible progressive collapse mechanisms. However there is, as yet, no accepted theory of robustness to help structural engineers. The term robustness implies strength and sturdiness in all possible limit states regardless of any actions on the system. One insight into the lack of robustness is gained by identifying how a system is vulnerable since this indicates how it is weakest.

The problem of identifying how a structure is weakest has been addressed at Bristol and a theory of Structural Vulnerability has been developed. It is an innovative systems theory of the form of a structure. The purpose of the theory is to help provide structural integrity by addressing the way in which a structure is connected together. The theory enables the form of a structure to be described so that the quality of its connectivity can be measured. This quality is called the ‘well-formedness’ of the structure. Thus ‘weak links’ are identified so that they may be redesigned or suitably protected and monitored. The theory enables particular ways in which a structure might fail to be identified. However, the emphasis of structural vulnerability theory is not the usual one of structural response analysis where a structure is examined under specific loading conditions. In vulnerability theory the loading causing damage can be any possible action e.g. dead load, wind load, accidental damage, terrorist attack etc.

The concepts are applicable across a wide range of systems, including water pipe works and traffic flows and work is in progress.

Safety Systems Research Centre

'Developing Integrated Methods to Assure the Safety and Reliability of Critical Systems'. Safety systems is the use of specialised high-integrity engineering techniques to achieve reliability and safety in life-critical systems. The SSRC performs safety systems research where progress requires novelty, directing fundamental research with an emphasis on strong industry needs to manage and control new breeds of critical systems.

More information

Formal safety arguments

Safety cases for systematic failure differ from traditional safety argumentation. Certain approaches are available in international standards such as IEC61508 but these lack solid theoretical or empirical foundations. Methods of capturing arguments in Bayesian Networks are being developed, to improve formality and transparency, and to act as the basis for future standards.

Safety culture and organisational safety

Recent analysis of major accidents highlights the importance of soft systems factors. An organisation's safety culture and its board level approach to safety are of key importance in maintaining safety within large and complex operations. Research is drilling down to identify the underlying organisational features that maintain safety. Hierarchical process modelling will be used to develop a 'litmus test' software tool that organisations can use to self-assess their safety culture and organisational safety performance.

Human factors in systems safety

The roles of humans in safety systems are often difficult to perform and analyse. In collaboration with the Dept of Experimental Psychology, we are starting to investigate the concepts of human tolerant systems with a focus on aiding human faculties. This is in contrast to the technology led systems of the past, in which human tasks primarily filled the gaps where automation was not possible.

The safety of COTS-based systems

The Arianne disaster highlighted the complexities and dangers of re-use of complex components. COTS (commercial-off-the-shelf) components are becoming popular but they raise significant challenges especially where they contain software. Statistical testing techniques, and novel component wrapping concepts, are being derived to facilitate safe component re-use.