Human Factor

      Social Psychology  is the  scientific  study of how people's  thoughts ,  feelings ,and  behaviors  are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others.                Social psychologists examine factors that cause behaviors to unfold in a given way in the presence of others.      Social psychologists  study conditions under which certain behavior, actions, and feelings occur. Social psychology is concerned with the way these feelings, thoughts, beliefs, intentions, and goals are cognitively constructed and how these mental representations, in turn, influence our interactions with others.       Social Environment -  AMEs work within a “system”.  There are various factors within this system that impinge on the AMEs , ranging from his knowledge, skills and abilities , the environment in which he works, to the culture  of ...

 Internal Occurrence Management Scheme (OMS).  An Occurrence Management Scheme should contain the following elements:   clearly identified aims and objectives;  demonstrable corporate commitment with responsibilities for the Occurrence Management Scheme clearly defined;   corporate encouragement of uninhibited reporting and participation by individuals;   disciplinary policies and boundaries identified and published;  an occurrence investigation process;   the events that will trigger error investigations identified and published;  investigators selected and trained;  OMS education for staff, and training where necessary;   appropriate action based on investigation findings• feedback of results to workforce;   analysis of the collective data showing contributing factor trends and frequencies.                        The aim of the scheme i...

               A key element of a HFP is a system whereby problems, or potential problems, can be reported and dealt with.                                           Many organisations already have some form of reporting system for technical issues or discrepancies, but this may need to be expanded, or additional system(s) put in place, to allow for the reporting of human errors, ambiguities with procedures, mismatches between required and actual practice, etc.              The CAR145 requirement is for an organisation to have in place an internal occurrence reporting scheme to enable the collation of occurrence reports, including the assessment and extraction of relevant information in order to identify adverse trends or to address deficiencies in the interests of safety.         ...

   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...