Situational Awareness Windows (SAWS) for Disaster management

Situational Awareness Windows (SAWS) for Disaster Management – A systems approach

Navneet Bhushan, Crafitti Consulting Private Limited (http://www.crafitti.com/)

Bangalore, India, E-mail: navneet.bhushan@crafitti.com

ABSTRACT

The rapidly globalizing world is creating complexities that demand unprecedented capabilities from decision-makers who find themselves in the middle of situations that can lead to disasters rapidly. These situations are called crises and/or disasters. These situations are characterized by extremely intertwined interplay of many factors in a volume of time and space. Decision-makers need capabilities to understand the interplay of these factors in time and space, comprehension of their meaning, and rapid projection of their interplay in near future to be able to comprehend and potentially conceive courses of action that lead to robust mitigation of crisis/disaster or managing the impact of crisis/disaster if the events have occurred. These capabilities have been termed as situational awareness (SA). A comprehensive SA is important in all decision making scenarios, however, it is critical in case of disaster and crisis situations as the disaster (man-made or natural) by definition lead to extreme loss for the affected community. Combining the 9 windows or 9 screens or system operator from the methodology of TRIZ (Russian acronym translated as Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) with the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), this paper describes a comprehensive framework for SA called SAWS (Situational Awareness WindowS). The paper also provides a case study with an application to disaster management for bio-war situation that is the most likely weapons of mass destruction (WMD) that non-state actors may use in their attempt to terrorize.

Keywords: 9 windows, Crisis Management, AHP, TRIZ, Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), Bio War

1. Introduction

How efficiently any crisis or disaster is handled depends upon the decision-making capabilities and resources available. At the organizational level there is a need to have a strategic situation awareness framework for decision making. A crisis and disaster management framework as described in [Bhushan and Rai, 2004] defines three stages of disaster management namely – crisis avoidance, crisis management and disaster management. Various factors impacting these three stages in general are also described and a framework using Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is also described. This paper combines the AHP framework for disaster management with the concept of nine windows or system operator from the theory of inventive problem solving (Russian problem solving methodology TRIZ) to describe a new strategic situational awareness framework named Situational Awareness Windows (SAWS). This extended abstract describes the key components of the framework applied to the context of bio-terrorism disasters.

2. System Operator from TRIZ

The theory of inventive problem solving (TRIZ) is a problem solving methodology developed on the basis of analysis of thousands of patents. (See http://www.triz-journal.com/ and http://aitriz.org/). A concept in TRIZ called nine windows or system operator is a simple means of thinking in TIME and SPACE. The basic principle of operation divides ‘the world’ into nine segments. In SAWS we map the central window of the 9 windows to crisis avoidance on the time axis and “system” – which in the case study on bioterrorism below is the nation or country. (See http://www.triz-journal.com/archives/2001/09/c/index.htm for more information on nine windows).

3. Bio-Terrorism Disasters

The gravest threat the world is facing today is the probability of low intensity conflicts being suddenly transformed into a high intensity conflict through possession, threat of usage and actual use of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) by actors (state and non-state actors) that are resorting to low intensity conflicts against nation states. The most dangerous and most likely way a covert actor will resort of an act of war or terrorism is by possessing, threatening to use and actual usage of Biological weapons - although chemical and nuclear weapons cannot be ignored. Use of biological agents to create mass casualties against a nation state this will have a dramatic impact. Covert actor’s decision to use biological weapons has sound logic as it is relatively easy to remain covert with bio weapons. Further, one needs small quantities as the living organisms used as bio weapons for example, multiple themselves, are relatively cheap and easy to produce, very difficult to detect and potentially available. Further, biological agents do not have to be pure to create casualties - the very fact of usage has a massive psychological impact.

4. Situation Awareness Windows Framework for managing Bio-terrorism disasters

As per the system operator or nine windows we divide the space dimension into Super-system as the world at large, System as the country or nation subjected to bio-attack and sub-system as the specific city or cities in the nation state that are likely to be attacked. The framework asks the experts for various factors that will impact the nine windows of SAWS and then rank order them using the well-established methodology of AHP. Figure below describes the output of the SAWS when all factors in nine windows are rank ordered using AHP.

References

Bhushan, N., & Rai, K (2004). Strategic Decision Making – Applying the Analytic Hierarchy Process, Springer, UK.

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Definition of System, TRIZ, How to Invent

From the textbook definition of a SYSTEM, one can see how TRIZ thinking for inventive problem solving can emerge.

A System is defined as, " A set of elements interacting together to achieve an objective or perform a function"

Set of elements (can themselves be viewed as systems as well).

System implies that it exists to achieve an objective or perform a function. If there is no function or objective, we can not define a system. Set of elements also define the boundary of the system, everything else is the environment in which system operates.

Interactions between elements lead to emergence of the system function, these interactions can be in space or time coordinates or under specific conditions (one can see the mapping to TRIZ).

In the process of performing a function/achieveing an objective, the system may have to interact with the environment - this will lead to the useful function being achieved, however, since system will be creating some change in the environment in the process of performing its function, it will create a harmful effect as well. one should strive to make/design the system in such a way that useful functions are achieved but all harmful effects are reduced or eliminated (the TRIZ concept of contradictions). This also gives us a peep into the evolution towards IDEAL system - another powerful TRIZ concept.

There are certain emergent properties of the system that are not explicitly mentioned/included in the definition of the system. the interactions between elements may lead to certain properties that the system designer would not have thought about. This is becoming more and more the case with complex adaptive systems (CAS). Since the definition of system explicitly doesnt include CAS, TRIZ also could not define the complex adaptive systems - here methink is the opportunity to integrate TRIZ thinking with the concepts, theories and methodologies of Complex Adaptive Systems.

Let us look at the Ideal System based on the system definition

Ideal System

1. Minimum set of elements => ZERO Elements
2. Minimum interactions => ZERO Interactions
3. No Harmful effects/Only useful Functions => No/Minimum interaction with the environment

Global Survey - TRIZ - Please Participate

Dear Friends:

Denis Cavallucci (past president of ETRIA and professor at INSA in Strasbourg, France) is organizing a global survey of the use and propagation of TRIZ. It would be very helpful if you would participate in the survey. Primarily, go to

http://www.inventive-design.net/limesurvey/index.php?sid=77961&lang=en

and answer the questions—it will take about a half hour. Secondarily, it would be greatly appreciated if you would pass this e-mail to your clients, to enhance the industry participation, so that the broadest possible cross-section of companies can be included. There are more than 30 people in 30 countries who are distributing this survey—my emphasis is on India, and I know that many of you are multinational practioners—you will no doubt get multiple requests (the survey will be available in Spanish and Korean shortly—English only for now.)

There is one question that asks how you got this survey—if you got it directly from me, please just put “Navneet Bhushan” and if you got a request forwarded by someone else, please put the name of the person who sent it to you. When you forward it to other consultants and to clients, of course ask them to put your name in that spot. This will be part of the research on how the network works.

The survey asks about industry, consultants, and academics. If you are in multiple categories (academic and consultant, for example) please fill out both sections.

Thanks in advance! The results will be published at the ETRIA meeting and in the TRIZ Journal. Your participation will enhance the richness of the survey.

Look forward to your active participation.

with warm regards,

Navneet