Human Factor

   What is most important is to emphasise the combined responsibility of the organisation, its management and supervisors, its processes and procedures, as well as the individual responsibility of each employee (not just certifying engineers) towards safety. Everyone has their own idea of what constitutes "professional" behaviour. Human factors training, and a company human factors programme can help set and maintain standards for professional behaviour, and provide staff with the mechanisms and support to enable them to work professionally. The problem might be that although staff know full well what they ought to be doing in keeping with professional standards, they are prevented from behaving as they would wish by organisational problems (e.g. poor procedures, commercial pressures, unavailability of correct tooling, poor training, etc.).          When the subject of professionalism is addressed in a company human factors training course, it is up to...

  This chapter will not go into details concerning management styles and techniques, nor the theories of leadership and followership - these are all covered more than adequately in various management texts, and also in James Taylor's book "Maintenance Resource Management". Instead, it stresses the importance of getting people at management and supervisory level to understand what the human factors programme is all about, and on getting 'buy-in' at senior management level. Top level management support is crucial to the success of a company human factors and error management programme. It is also particularly important to get middle management and supervisors on-board for the programme to be successful, and for them to demonstrate commitment to the programme to the staff. Supervisors are particularly important in the success or failure of a human factors programme, since it is they who set the standards which others are likely to follow. If, for instance, a supervi...

   Planning is critical to human factors in that it should aim to ensure that there are adequate appropriately qualified and alert personnel, tools, equipment, material, maintenance data and facilities at the right place, at the right time, for the scheduled and unscheduled tasks.        CAR 145 states that an organisation may only maintain an aircraft /component when all necessary facilities, equipment, tooling, material, maintenance data and certifying staff are available.  It is not the purpose  to tell planners how to do their jobs but, rather, to highlight some of the human factors issues which they should be taking into account in the planning process, such as human performance limitations when working shifts and long hours.                                                 Depending on the amount and complexity of work ...

  Research indicates that many maintenance tasks are signed off unseen. In order to prevent omissions, mis-installations, etc., every maintenance task or group of tasks should be signed-off. To ensure the task or group of tasks is completed, sign-off should only take place after completion and appropriate checks.          Work by noncompetent personnel (i.e. temporary staff, trainee, etc.) should be checked by authorised personnel before they sign-off. The grouping of tasks for the purpose of signing-off should allow critical steps to be clearly identified.       NOTE: A “sign-off” is a statement by the competent person performing or supervising the work, that the task or group of tasks has been correctly performed. A sign-off relates to one step in the maintenance process and is therefore different to the release to service of the aircraft.  Signing off small groups of tasks will help prevent situations where a technician is called awa...

   The primary objective of handovers is to ensure that all necessary information is communicated between the out-going and in-coming personnel. Effective task and shift handover depends on three basic elements:  • The outgoing person’s ability to understand and communicate the important elements of the job or task being passed over to the incoming person.  • The incoming person’s ability to understand and assimilate the information being provided by the outgoing person.  • A formalised process for exchanging information between outgoing and incoming persons and a place and time for such exchanges to take place.  Organisations should have a recognised procedure for task and shift handovers which all staff understand and adhere to. This procedure should be listed in the MOE.   Ideally the procedure should provide for sufficient time to be made available by way of a shift overlap, depending on the complexity of task(s) to be handed over. As a guidel...

 Reporting Discrepancies               In addition to an occurrence reporting system, where a problem has resulted in some soft of event, there should be an internal occurrence/discrepancy reporting system whereby staff can report inaccuracies or ambiguities in procedures, or, indeed, suggest better ways of doing particular tasks, such that procedures can be frequently updated and improved. This system must result in actions and improvements to the procedures, otherwise it will not be used by the workforce.        There is plenty of scope within AMO to provide consistency in its documentation. Indeed, Part-145 requires organisations to provide a common workcard or worksheet system for use throughout relevant parts of the organisation.           Access The best designed procedures are of little use unless they can be accessed and used by the engineers and technicians in real working environment...

       A work instruction is what you should do, whereas a procedure is how you should do it.        Job cards are usually work instructions; procedures generally originate from the Maintenance Manual.        Writing Procedures and Work Instructions As well as maintenance data and procedures provided by the manufacturer having scope for improvement, there is also often a better way of writing or presenting technical procedures and work instructions which are produced by, and used within, a maintenance organisation.                                                                   Obviously the fundamental elements of the procedures should not deviate from the manufacturer’s requirement, but there is often scope for presenting that information in such a way that...