Harry H. Goode

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Harry H. Goode (30 June 1909–30 October 1960) was an American computer engineer and systems engineer and professor at the University of Michigan. He is known as co-author of the book Systems Engineering from 1957, which is one of the earliest significant books directly related to systems engineering.[1]

Contents

[edit] Biography

Harry Goode was born in New York City in 1909. He received his B.A. in history from New York University in 1931, when the country was in the depths of the Depression. While studying chemical engineering at Cooper Union, Goode earned his living playing the clarinet and saxophone in New York jazz bands.[2] He received his second bachelor's degree in 1940. During the war he attended Columbia University and received a master's degree in mathematics in 1945.

In 1941 Goode started working as a statistician for the New York City Department of Health. From 1946 to 1949 Goode worked the U.S. Navy in Sands Point, Long Island, where he become head of the Special Projects Branch. Here he contributed to flight control simulation training, aircraft instrumentation, antisubmarine warfare, weapons systems design, and computer research and initiated computerbased simulation projects.

In the 1950s Goode became professor at the University of Michigan. Until his death in 1960 he was president of the National Joint Computer Committee (NJCC). He was the principal architect of what was to become AFIPS (American Federation of Information Processing Societies). Had he lived, Goode undoubtedly would have become the first president of AFIPS, for he was the prime mover in organizing the three American constituent societies that were members of NJCC into one federation. [3]

[edit] Work

Harry Goode worked on the research frontiers of Management Science, Operations Research and Systems engineering in connection with organisms as systems, the reactions of groups, models of human preference, the experimental exploration of human observation, detection, and decision making, and the analysis and synthesis of speech.[4]

[edit] Research on Service Records

In 1944-45 at the New York City Department of Health Harry Goode worked with other physicians, nurses, and statisticians researched the keeping of records of daily performance in the school health service. Their aim was for administrators to looks for ways in which to switch his staff from less to more productive activities. Saving time in record keeping is one way of making time for other activities, but if few records are-kept they must be chosen carefully and with an eye to their utility. Too frequently facts and figures are accumulated with little attention paid to their utility.[5]

[edit] Management science

Back in the 1950 on University of Michigan Goode worked on the foundation of Management science concerning the structure and integrity of methods in Management science. He was convinced that by then Management Science, Operations Research and Systems Engineering were only defined by their overlap with other fields rather than by any problem central problem of their own. He considered it desirable to seek out and transplant developments in other sciences which might conceivably make a use of contributions to the overall structure of the field.[4]

To Goode, Management Science had to have a science foundation upon which to build a structure to serve management. Until then, the sciences making the greatest contribution have been mathematical and physical in nature. But theory, experimental design, and measurement are rapidly revolutionizing our knowledge of the human being so that the psychological and biological sciences may be expected to make a greater and greater contribution to the management sciences. These areas according to Goode were not useful for immediate application at the user's level in the management sciences, these were greenhouses of science for management from which applicable science may be expected to emanate.[4]

[edit] Operation Research

In 1954 Googe attended an Operations Research (OR) meeting by a group of educators, which devoted half of the meeting time to the question "What is OR?". He questioned the need to devote time to self-identification. In view of this uncertainty, he thought is was remarkable that the group of educators, concerned with the hard core of engineering education, should devote time to surveying a field whose practitioners keep nervously reassuring themselves of its existence. Goode believe that the effort is worth undertaking because the OR phenomenon is part of a larger effect which touches all of engineering; because this effect must modify, perhaps profoundly, all engineering education; and because the causes yielding this effect are continuing ones which will lead repeatedly to more, and similar, developments in the future. He indicated that OR is part of a larger effect. To deal with the latter, at the risk of overlapping in the automation and automatic controls area and in the computer area he inserted "Engineering" in the place of "Analysis" in the title "Survey of Operations Research and Systems Analysis."[6]

[edit] System engineering

In 1957 Goode co-authored the book System Engineering: An Introduction to the Design of Large-scale Systems. This was one of the first authoritative texts in the field. This book addresses the sets of tools, classification of parts, organized approach, and teams of workers needed to design a system. The book is primarily directed at automatic control systems (transportation, communications, material handling, data processing, and military systems).

Goode and Machol defined systems engineering. "The concept from the engineering standpoint is the evolution of the engineering scientist, i.e., the scientific generalist who maintains a broad outlook. The method is that of the team approach. On large-scale-system problems, teams of scientists and engineers, generalists as well as specialists, exert their joint efforts to find a solution and physically realize it...The technique has been variously called the systems approach or the team development method."[7]

[edit] Harry H. Goode Memorial Award

The IEEE Computer Society yearly awarded a Harry H. Goode Memorial Award for achievements in the information processing field which are considered either a single contribution of theory, design, or technique of outstanding significance, or the accumulation of important contributions on theory or practice over an extended time period, the total of which represent an outstanding contribution.[8]

Eckert and Mauchly examine a ENIAC printout. In 1966 they received the Harry Goode Medal.
Eckert and Mauchly examine a ENIAC printout. In 1966 they received the Harry Goode Medal.

Scientists awarded, a selection:

[edit] Publications

Goode has written several books and articles. Books:

  • 1944, Mathematical Analysis of Ordinary and Deviated Pursuit Curves, with Leonard Gillman, Special Devices Section, Training Division, Bureau of Aeronautics, Navy Department, 264 pp. 1944.
  • 1957, Systems Engineering: An Introduction to the Design of Large-Scale Systems, with Robert Engel Machol, McGraw-Hill, 551 pp.

Articles, a selection:

  • 1945, "Service Records and Their Administrative Uses", with Abraham H. Kantrow, Leona Baumgartner, in: Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1945 October; 35(10): 1063–1069.
  • 1956, "The Use of a Digital Computer to Model a Signalized Intersection," with C.H. Pollmar and J.B. Wright, in: Proceedings of Highway Research Board, vol. 35, 1956, pp. 548 - 557.
  • 1957, "Survey of Operations Research and Systems Engineering", Paper presented at Conference of Engineering Deans on Science and Technology, Purdue University, September 1957.
  • 1958, "Greenhouses of Science for Management", in: Management Science, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Jul., 1958), pp. 365-381.
  • 1958, "Simulation: Simulation and display of four inter-related vehicular traffic intersections", with C. True Wendell, Paper presented at the 13th national meeting of the Association for Computing Machinery ACM '58.

About Harry H. Goode:

  • Isaac L. Auerbach, "Harry H. Goode, June 30, 1909-October 30, 1960," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 08, no. 3, pp. 257-260, Jul-Sept, 1986.
  • Robert E. Machol, Harry H. Goode, System Engineer, in: Science, Volume 133, Issue 3456, pp. 864-866, 03/1961.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Systems engineering by Brittanica. 2007
  2. ^ Isaac L. Auerbach, Harry. H. Goode, June 30, 1909-October 30, 1960, p.257.
  3. ^ Article Harry H. Goode, June 30, 1909-October 30, 1960,: Abstract, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, retrieved Sept 2007.
  4. ^ a b c Harry H. Goode, "Greenhouses of Science for Management", in: Management Science, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Jul., 1958), pp. 365-381.
  5. ^ 1945, Abraham H. Kantrow, Leona Baumgartner, Harry H. Goode, "Service Records and Their Administrative Uses : Experience from a School Health Service" *in: Am J Public Health Nations Health. 1945 October; 35(10): 1063–1069.
  6. ^ Harry H. Goode, "Survey of Operations Research and Systems Engineering", Paper presented at Conference of Engineering Deans on Science and Technology, Purdue University, September 1957.
  7. ^ Goode, Harry H.; Robert E. Machol (1957). System Engineering: An Introduction to the Design of Large-scale Systems. McGraw-Hill. , p. 8. LCCN 56-11714.
  8. ^ Harry H. Goode Memorial Award, IEEE Computer society. See here in this list, or here.

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