Edge Awareness – A Dynamic Safety Perspective on Four Accidents/Incidents

Abstract

A framework focusing on the difference between situation awareness and edge awareness is presented. It consists in distinguishing system awareness from situation awareness, and introducing edge awareness as the candidate mental state to be used as a lodestar in design of resilient systems and to avoid future systems disasters. A case-study on four well known accidents/incidents is presented. The investigation reports are filtered through the new framework resulting in alternative interpretations of the causes of the accidents. It is concluded that the role of calculative models in systems disasters must be examined thoroughly, and that one way to counteract for such disasters is to design for edge awareness. Having edge awareness means being involved in and aware of how situations develop, how systems contribute and how these aspects combine into a joint and an emergent phenomenon. Edge awareness is the basis for responsible and autonomous decisions.

Keywords: Human Systems Interaction, Systems Engineering, Situation Awareness, Edge Awareness

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe100138