Shrink Engineering: and the Connection to High Integrity

Ever heard of a Business Shrink. Someone who applies Psychology principals to business methods. Shrink Engineering is of a similar nature. Someone or a business that includes psychology/ human factors principals in the engineering process. Thus, producing performance and design above the usual standard creating a High Integrity Company.

“Why would anyone hire Psychology majors?” you ask. Bottom line of all business; it saves money. It produces a cheaper, and more reliable product. Having someone with a BS in Psychology creates operational flexibility and gives any company the boost up to a High Integrity level.

To achieve a High Integrity Company status there are three things any company have. (Interdependence, Involvement, and Operational Excellence) It is our opinion that any company will find it difficult to achieve high reliability and high performance without the combination of a socio-technical system. The socio-technical system consist a triad team of design, maintenance and operation. Think Air Force, NASA, both use Shrink Engineering. High Integrity Companies?

Is your company/corporation a High Integrity company? Take this simple test and find out.

Is your management style applied consistently throughout the company? (Each management level has to have a clear definition of its role and the same style is applied to each level. All organizations within the company are interdependent)

Does your company embrace information transparency? (Everyone in the organization can see the information they need to, when they want too, in the format that suits them)

Does your company allow for job enlargement? (All levels participate in problem solving teams)

Does your company have at least one BS Psychology degreed person on the project team?

Does your engineering company consistently produce designs that need few changes?

If you answered no to any of the above questions then you need to look at the benefits of Shrink Engineering.

Comparison: Company A and B are building a payload for NASA.

A	B
Only hires 5Engineers and 2 office support	Hires 3 Engineers, 1 BS Psychology major, 2 office support (Cheaper bid or more profit)
Requirements document written by team of Engineers	Requirements document written by team of engineers/ Psychology/office support
Design drawn up by engineers. They label everything by part number.	Design drawn by Engineers/ Psychology. Label drawing with functional names. (ie: Hot water hose) Water droplets will float away. Develop encasement for payload. No leverage in Space (add a handle to brace against)
Preliminary design review held with Engineers. Catch an electrical break.	Preliminary design review held with Engineer/ Psychology. Catch an electrical break and the fact the buttons are not labeled and the sticky label substance will not work in the cold plant freezer on board Space Station.
Change drawing for Electrical break	Change drawing for electrical break, button labels and product list.
Design review by engineers. Now know labels should be applied for payload. s	Design review by Engineer/Psychology. Re work toggle switch from three position to two position for safety. Test noise level.
Change drawings and make part labels	Change drawing
Nasa Preliminary review	NASA Preliminary review
Change all labels to operational names because humans are using these. Develop encasement. Change all drawings, regulation, agreements, every documentation with these part numbers/ labels.	NASA Satisfied-- two minor changes. Fix and take photo to send to NASA. For fix verification.
Nasa Review. This type label won’t work in freezer. Reschedule proto type delivery date	Move on to prototype.
Research new material change drawings and all documentation.
Nasa Review. Using liquid must have encasement. What is noise level? Where is our leverage? Review requirements document redesign to noise control and create leverage handle. Change all drawings/documents accordingly.
Design encasement. Review encasement change all drawings and documentation and Payload integration Agreement. .
Reschedule proto type delivery date.

Why did company B meet their schedule, save money, and satisfy the customer? Non physiological metrics were applied with physiological metrics. All decisions were made on the best technical information available to each company. Company B simply had a broader information base.

Software design teams complete all testing phases yet only 75% are functional enough to get put into operation. Most of these are compromised and difficult for the end user. Few are intuitive. (Gibbs 1994) The Hubble telescope failed because of a poor interface design. (Caspars and Lipton. 1991)

The best training manuals are written by asking interactive questions from an out sourced provider. Engineers know there systems so well it may seem intuitive or they may assume some prior knowledge while they write. New perspectives at the beginning stages of the design team. Will bring out the issues early.

Those with some type of socio-degree may not know how to build the “system” or run the stress test it, but they are trained to include environment into the system equation. An emphasis on planning using a variety of resources is an indicator of a High Integrity Company.

When your business includes a BS Psychology major they are getting someone trained in scientific research. They are getting a solution based thinker. A socio degree brings new thought and perspective to the design while addressing the sensitivity issues..

All airplanes are designed this way. Think cock-pit. All engineering projects need someone to bring a new angle to the team at the very beginning. To many changes will have to occur if you wait until the end.

The missile that worked fine in the states would not fire in Iraq. Why?. Environment. It was too hot for the guts. (Personal knowledge) The Inventory management software took years to become proficient. Why? Not intuitive nor reviewed by someone asking the correct interface questions.

Leading indicators show performance is increased when companies move toward value based strategies. Shrink Engineering is more bang for the buck and should be insisted upon by our government before spending our money.

Can an engineering company be a High Integrity company without Psychology on their staff? I don’t think so. The company that waits until the product reaches market before considering all the issues will not be using all available resources and may not be successful.

Say amen if you agree.