Abstract
Women have officially served in the Army with equal benefits and protections since July 1943 under the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) [1] and since then have trained and aided in all types of Army units in limited capacities from the Medical Service Corps to Special Operations. Those limited military occupational specialties (MOSs) kept women out of combat arms roles and branches like the Infantry, Armor, and Field Artillery. However, in 2013 the Defense Department opened all Army branches to women and December 2015 marked the historic decision for all previously coded male combat roles or MOSs being opened to women [1, 2]. Due to this change in culture and the openness to gender equality of positions and units, the Army realized it must update infrastructure, regulations, education, and practices for this change to be successful and for women to finally experience full integration within the Army. The main purpose of my work is to inform the Department of Defense (DoD) acquisition’s process to ensure an optimizing of Human Systems Integration into the procurement of equipment such that soldiers are well and appropriately equipped. This work focuses on the integration of women into combat arms to afford women a means to urinate under tactical conditions such that they maintain optimal hydration and tactical posture, and they do not risk urinary tract infection or medical concerns. The initial steps in the process were to gain an understanding of the issues to inform the studies to identify the needs of the soldier to perform tactically. For the initial studies two different Soldier populations were queried for experiences, the responses of which informed the methods of the Voice of Customer (VOC) Studies. A third research study was conducted on the physiological aspect of female urination and how traditional means limit Army women and their ability to complete this normal bodily function expediently and safely in austere environments. The VOC returned insight from a cross-section of West Point Women (WPW) classes of 1980-2021 that informed my final study, Research Study #4. Thus, I approached the problem from the human factors engineering perspective centered around the human experience and product effectiveness [3, 4] through the evaluation of the Army issued commercial off the shelf (COTS) urinary devices: Shewee and Freshette and their interactions with the alternate / female variant operational camouflage (OCP) trouser and the unisex trouser. Fifteen out of 20 interested women between the ages of 18-22 from the Fall Sandhurst Competition at the United States Military Academy (USMA) volunteered to participate in the product review held on 18-19 October 2019, resulting in approximately 18 operational field hours of multiple lanes, mixture of genders, and limited latrine facilities, while wearing full combat gear except for the Modular Scalable Vest (MSV). These women were given both devices and one of the pant types, based on preference. The result was eight alternate and seven unisex pants distributed. The women were asked to practice on the devices during the 24-hour period prior to their competition to gain familiarity and then choose their favorite tool to use during Sandhurst. Eleven out of 15 women chose the Freshette over the Shewee. The overwhelming opinion upon device turn in was that of joy, excitement, and great expectation of a future with urinary aids. However, the underlying frustration and consensus was that the devices might not be ideal under tactical conditions due the design limitations, storage options, and overall inconvenience. These sentiments both verbally and written through the post-Sandhurst survey guided me to explore what device or device characteristics were more appropriate for these elite women. Desiring to clearly hear and implement the VOC, I took a user centered design approach based on desired user experience [3, 4]. My vehicle of execution was the quality function deployment (QFD) which relates the “what” the user needs to “how” the device will be engineered comparing product variants in a house of quality (HOQ) [5, 6]. The resulting technical targets for a new device from the QFD are a vented microbial carrying case, OCP trouser alterations, a combination of rigid and hard polypropylene for the device, anthropometric sizing, and basin resizing to meet flow rates. The current device technical targets are a use and cleaning instruction manual and the disinfectant bleach/ alcohol spray. These studies revealed attitudes in favor of a urinary aid that could greatly enhance the female urination experience and mission success; however, there must be a suitable redesign of the current COTS devices and the ACU/OCP trouser to meet the customer’s operational needs (convenient and easy access to trouser opening for device insertion and removal; use protocol), force health protection (vented microbial carrying case and disinfectant spray), and the ability to maintain hygienic devices (cleaning protocol). All three areas help to increase a unit’s combat effectiveness and are paramount in addressing and solving female urination in austere environments.