DYNAMAN aids police recruitment process

A police service’s recruitment policy has been given a boost thanks to an engineering consultancy and its computer modelling capabilities.

Systems engineering firm Frazer-Nash Consultancy was tasked by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) to assist in the development of standards for testing physical strength, in order to improve the service’s standards of care for its officers.

As part of specialist officer recruitment tests, the PSNI makes use of a force measuring machine to assess the strength of prospective candidates in performing job-related physical tasks – a key requirement for Close Protection officers in particular.

The PSNI needed to understand precisely what force a Close Protection officer might be expected to apply in the role, and required the force test to be set at a level which reflects what is likely to happen in the ‘real world’.

Frazer-Nash made use of its bespoke DYNAMAN human modelling software tool to represent the ‘push’ and ‘pull’ police officers need to apply. The approach was to conduct a series of detailed dynamic analyses, spanning the range of scenarios in which an officer is expected to exert pushing or pulling forces.