Soldier-Centered Design Tools: Recent Developments, Challenges, and Paths Forward

From its inception in the mid-1980s as the Army’s HSI initiative, MANPRINT (Manpower and Personnel Integration) has subsumed two human performance-related thrusts: operability and supportability. Operability addresses the viability of a conceptual system, including the soldiers who will use it, and typically has
a single-system focus. Supportability looks at associated manpower, personnel, and training requirements and the service’s ability to meet these requirements.
Increasing rates of technological change and changes in the world scene have altered the traditional landscape of systems acquisition. System and doctrinal complexity have increased dramatically.

The standard operating procedures of warfare (in other words, the rules of warfare) are increasingly dynamic and situation dependent. Old ways of understanding organization are no longer dependable. Moreover, new technology and doctrinal concepts such as network-centric warfare require new organizational forms to deliver promised performance. For example, an M1 Abrams tank could replace an M60 tank, and the organization will remain
an armored unit. But when a mechanized brigade is upgraded into a Stryker Brigade Combat Team, or later into an FCS-equipped unit of action, the resulting organization is not a mechanized brigade in the traditional sense. The combat team now has different personnel requirements, capabilities, and vulnerabilities and must be led in very different ways to achieve its intended performance.
It can be argued that we now field new teams as well as new systems in the traditional sense.