Trustworthiness in Industrial System Design
system: Trust is a human trait and hard to
explain as an output of industrial design
principles. That is why trustworthiness is so
important: It bridges the gap between
design and trust. And it works for all types of
industrial systems: Even if the design and
operation of a system are very different, the
principles of trustworthiness are always the
same.
A B ETTER W AY TO I MPLEMENT A
S YSTEM E VERYONE C AN T RUST
In the beginning, most designs were not
reliable. Stakeholders who invested in
the systems, were disappointed with lost
profits because each failure stopped
production output.
Over time, reliability of the system and
its components were improved and
stakeholders began to address the
resilience
characteristic
of
trustworthiness, e.g., making the system
more robust against unexpected
disruptions, such as fire, but also against
Trustworthiness
(IT-) Privacy
(IT-) Security
Safety
Resilience
Reliability
Time
1850
1900
Early
Industrial
Age
1950
1995
Traditional
Industrial
Age
2010
Internet
Industrial
Age
Figure 1: The Evolution of Trustworthiness in Industrial Systems
The five characteristics of trustworthiness
are not new in the history of industrial
design. Figure 1 shows the history of these
characteristics: They were introduced at
different stages during the progression of
the industrial revolution.
For example, think about the evolution of a
steel plant from the mid-19 th century up to
today and you will see:
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natural catastrophes such as storms,
flooding or earthquakes.
With the increasing power of unions and
the influence of government, especially
in democracies enforced by voters,
safety issues came to the forefront
around the end of the 19 th and beginning
of the 20 th century. The early focus was
on employee safety and later expanded