Systematic Approach to Assessing the Readiness of a Technology for Safe and Effective Human Use: Opportunities to Integrate Human Readiness Levels (HRLs) in Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Research, Acquisition, and System Development Processes

Systems moving through the development and acquisition process must demonstrate increasing levels of maturity and safety as they move closer to implementation in the National Airspace System. Multiple required activities must be completed to demonstrate how “ready” or mature the system is prior to implementation. This includes addressing questions around user involvement and operational readiness such as: how are human-integration challenges addressed? How are the differences in human performance captured throughout the development lifecycle? In September of 2021, the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) published the Human Readiness Level (HRL) scale as the ANSI/HFES Standard 400-2021, “Human Readiness Level Scale in the System Development Process.” The HRL scale is used to assess, track, and convey the readiness of a system for human use. It is intended to supplement the existing technology readiness level (TRL) scale developed by National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which measures and communicates the maturity of a technology. This research provides a methodology to tailor the HRL scale to an existing process for research, acquisition, and system development. It also identifies specific opportunities to align existing human factors work activities and output data with the HRL scale. Results could provide a basis for using the HRL scale as an enhancement to an existing process without changing it. Based on the literature reviewed, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the first civil aviation authority (CAA) in the world to advance the use of HRLs in this context since the scale was codified in September 2021.