ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the issue of how humans and machines can work together to accomplish a given and common goal. This has traditionally been referred to as the problem of function allocation. The origin of the verb therefore refers to the notion of a place in either a physical or a functional space that is something which has a location or can be associated to a recognisable part of the system. A fundamental feature of all function allocation methods is that they impose, or are based on, a principle of decomposition. Possibly the best illustration that humans function differently than machines is provided by the way in which functions are allocated among humans. The function congruence must be complemented by a set of rules that guides the function re-distribution, keeping in mind the constraints stemming from limited resources and inter-functional dependencies. Function congruence in human-machine systems is exemplified by dynamic task allocation, example Vanderhaegen, 1992.
