Antifragility Analysis and Measurement Framework for Systems of Systems

Authors

John Johnson, Old Dominion University
Adrian V. Gheorghe, Old Dominion UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2013

DOI

10.1007/s13753-013-0017-7

Publication Title

International Journal of Disaster Risk Science

Volume

4

Issue

4

Pages

159-168

Abstract

The twenty-first century is defined by the social and technical hazards we face. A hazardous situation is a condition, or event, that threatens the well-being of people, organizations, societies, environments, and property. The most extreme of the hazards are considered X-Events and are an exogenous source of extreme stress to a system. X-Events can also be the unintended outputs of a system with both positive (serendipitous) and negative (catastrophic) consequences. Systems can vary in their ability to withstand these stress events. This ability exists on a continuum of fragility that ranges from fragile (degrading with stress), to robust (unchanged by stress), to antifragile (improving with stress). The state of the art does not include a method for analyzing or measuring fragility. Given that "what we measure we will improve," the absence of a measurement approach limits the effectiveness of governance in making our systems less fragile and more robust if not antifragile. The authors present an antifragile system simulation model, and propose a framework for analyzing and measuring antifragility based on system of systems concepts. The framework reduces a multidimensional concept of fragility into a two-dimensional continuous interval scale.

ORCID

0000-0003-2830-675X (Gheorghe)

Original Publication Citation

Johnson, J., & Gheorghe, A. V. (2013). Antifragility analysis and measurement framework for systems of systems. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 4(4), 159-168. doi: 10.1007/s13753-013-0017-7

Repository Citation

Johnson, John and Gheorghe, Adrian V., "Antifragility Analysis and Measurement Framework for Systems of Systems" (2013). Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications. 3.
https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/emse_fac_pubs/3