System of Human Activity Systems

This book has unique features that set it apart from conventional books on the prevention of system failures in that it provides a method that views human activities from a meta-methodological perspective based upon an inter-disciplinary understanding of human activities. With these characteristics, the book also proposes a common methodological basis to apply to various problems surrounding society today such as an aging social infrastructure; the safety of food, medicine, and public transportation; and the creation of sustainable electricity and cybersecurity. Furthermore, since the failure of human activities is expressed in a three-dimensional space and the topological metrics are implemented, the failure trajectories can be quantitatively monitored in time series to take effective preventive measures. Considering the implementation of the topological metrics, the causes of each failure are classified into two dimensions of the degree of coupling between system elements and theinteraction between the target system and the external environment. Owing to the nature of the introduction of topological metrics, all individual and diverse systems can share general topological metrics. Consequently, understanding various failures over cross-industries is possible with the use of common meta-systemic language and mutual learning between different industries, and the solution of social problems can be effectively achieved. A system of system failures (SOSF) proposed and confirmed the effectiveness of this meta-methodology for information and communication technologies (ICT) systems and the SOSF is extended to human activity systems (SOHAS: system of human activity systems) as a whole. Therefore, the SOHAS becomes an academic foundation for theoretical research on meta-methodology, and it has an impact on practitioners to prevent system failures by accumulating knowledge of failures and learning from other industries.

Takafumi Nakamura is a Special Appoint Professor of Management at Daito Bunka University and is renowned for his research in risk management. He has a doctoral degree in science from the Tokyo Institute of Technology and a master’s in management from McGill University. He was a Principal IT architect with Fujitsu, a member of their board, and President of the System Support Promotion Unit at Fujitsu Fsas Inc. He has over thirty years of experience in ICT infrastructure architecture in the Japanese market and five years of experience in the Australian as well as EMEA markets. His research interests include system management, software development, strategic maintenance planning, development support technologies, and risk management. He is playing a leadership role as an ICT architect, System Analyst, and System Thinker. He is fascinated by the connection between kendo (Japanese martial arts) and systems thinking and practices it several times a week.