The Resilience Analysis Matrix (RAM): Visualizing functional dependencies in complex socio-technical systems

Abstract

RAM is a method for visualization to facilitate analysis of\rfunctional dependencies in complex socio-technical systems. The RAM\rfacilitates the description of instantiations (as in FRAM) to model system behaviour in for example different situational circumstances or to model “work as planned vs. work as actually done”. Instantiations can be traced through following a coloured line. Thereby the RAM can be used for retrospective (reconstructing the actual instantiations of an event) as well as prospective (possible instantiations in future behaviour of the system) analysis. Resilience characteristics (see e.g. Woods, 2006) can be analysed with a focus on functions and with a focus on paths/instantiations. Two cases are described to illustrate the points\routlined above: a) The Swedish civil crisis response missions to the Asian Tsunami of 2004 and the Israel-Lebanon war of 2006 b) Attempted takeoff from wrong runway accident of Comair Flight 5191, 2006.\r