Chad Stearns, SYSE 515

System Complexity is a very important concept to understand.  It is important to understand this and make the proper human factors adjustments as necessary. In the aviation community, it's important to understand and test how new systems work.  Validation & Verification are two important parts of designing a new system.  When installing a new system, ensuring that the system isn't too complex for the pilots to understand without proper training.  So implementing those focus groups during the design phase is important.  The pilot in an aircraft needs to know how the system thinks, in order to mitigate any potential issues. But it also needs to be done for training purposes.  It is important for the system's process to be walked through for end users.  As we continue to develop complex systems, we need to ensure that we understand how they work and be able to test them appropriately. Below is a cool video from GE Aviation that I found helpful a...

Statistics are so important to our everyday lives.  More than most people realize.  So far from the last blog posts, you have probably seen that I have a passion for aviation.  So, continuing on that thread, statistics are so important in aviation. It's amazing to see statistics in the transportation industry.  Take a guess as to what the safest mode of transportation is?  Aviation.  Looking at the statistics, it is the safest industry.  According to the Washington Post Article in 2015, The safest - and deadliest - ways to travel , by Christopher Ingram, traveling by plane is the safest.  There are 0.07 deaths per 1 billion passengers in aviation. It's interesting to think about, because it is probably the most risky out of most methods of transportation.  Especially when it is a big deal in the media every time we have a plane crash, it makes it seem like it's a very unsafe industry. Statistics like this can affect someone's mentality ...

Understanding the concept of probability is very important, particularly when you are in the aviation industry.  When I was in school at the Daytona Beach campus, I was also a flight student for a few years.  One thing that was always interesting was the weather at the DB campus.  As we know, Florida has some pretty unique and unpredictable weather.  Which is not necessarily a good thing for a pilot.  One issue that I found myself struggling with is having to cancel flights due to weather. So, using this example.  If we took 365 days, and said approximately 130 days are perfect condition during the flight block, 200 days are raining/stormy during the flight block, and 35 days are too windy to fly. Main Categories: Probability of it being perfect condition (perfect flying weather): 130/365 = 0.356 Probability of it not being perfect condition (potentially unable to fly): (200+35)/365 = 0.6438 Sub Category of the Second: Probability of it being rain...

My name is Chad Stearns, and I am thrilled to be taking SYSE 515 with Dr. RoBry through Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University - Worldwide.  Professionally, I am a Project Manager for The Boeing Company.  I graduated from ERAU Daytona last year and am looking forward to returning back to school. My career goal is to be a senior executive (on the executive council) at Boeing.  Preferably leading our Defense, Space & Security division or the entire company.  My undergrad was in Business Administration, so with the combined business & engineering degrees, it will help out tremendously, especially in aviation manufacturing companies. I'm excited to see where this degree program takes me, and what all I can learn from it.  It's a very interesting career field to be in.  Once I complete the degree program, I will likely move from Project Management to Project Engineering or just becoming a regular Systems Engineer for one of our defense contracts at Boe...