and specifically aviation maintenance, for complacency. Beyond the regulatory requirement of trained and qualified individuals and the equipment, materials and data necessary for the task at hand, the single most- important trait is communication. An organizational management system that encourages communication, true three-way communication, can resolve many of the other soft skills. What is three-way communication? We are all
familiar with the classic two-way communication: up and down the chain of command – management to employee; employee to management. Three-way adds the lateral communication: management with management and employee with employee. An organization with active three-way communication will promote teamwork, manage and respond to assertiveness, enhance awareness and likely help manage stress, especially the stress generated by work pressures. Often, the workplace pressures caused by scheduling can be resolved by management communicating realistic schedules and expectations and the employees communicating their needs to meet the schedules. The last two elements, distraction and fatigue,
are certainly shared responsibilities between the organization and the individual. I would like to focus this discussion on what the organization can do to promote the individual’s consciousness of his or her limitations as well as what the organization can do to manage the elements directly. These two elements highlight a basic question: Where is the technician’s mind? Can they focus on the critical step in front of them, or is their mind a dozen miles away? Managing distractions and fatigue from non-work causes is as important as those in the workplace since they have a direct impact on where the technician’s mind and thoughts are while performing tasks. To promote self-management of human limitation, the organization must implement a non-punitive environment. If the individual is conscious of personal limitations, he or she must be encouraged to share with management so the limitation can be managed. Without a positive non-punitive workplace, the individual will be encouraged to conceal a limitation, which increases the risk of less-than-desired task quality. This less-than-desired performance often leads to reduced efficiency, an increase in failures leading to longer projects or tasks requiring rework, and occasionally becomes the causal factor in an accident or incident. From management’s perspective of distraction and
fatigue, fatigue is easy. A fatigue risk management plan is straightforward. Now, let’s not get too wrapped around
this fancy label. We are talking about basic scheduling of work. As noted earlier, each repair station has a requirement to “ensure it has a sufficient number of employees” to perform maintenance. If we are actively managing the scheduling system, the daily routine issues of fatigue risk should be minimized. That allows management to focus on managing fatigue caused by that episodic workload caused by unforeseen events or emergency responses. As I write this column, the firefighting in Australia comes to mind. The firebombers and their crews are working overtime, and managing fatigue and errors caused by fatigue is critical. The last item for management is workplace distractions. If you consider the United States Department of
Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration on distracted driving and understand that there is a parallel between distracted driving and distracted maintenance, this gives us some logical elements to focus. The NHTSA defines distracted driving as “any activity that diverts attention from driving, including talking or texting on your phone, eating and drinking, talking to people in your vehicle, fiddling with the stereo, entertainment or navigation system – anything that takes your attention away from the task of safe driving.” I suggest that a distracted workplace is anything that takes your attention away from the maintenance task. We work in aviation. We, hopefully, work at an
airport. We love airplane noise. And every taxiing aircraft does grab our attention. But notwithstanding that, what about the other distractions in the hangar? Texting? Visitors? Customers? How do you manage the known distractions? While we are talking about everyone’s responsibilities to understand and manage elements that can negatively affect human performance, what are the national aviation authorities doing to negatively affect human performance? Perhaps the worst “distraction” in the workplace is an authority audit. Where is the technician’s mind as the auditor walks around the floor, interrupting maintenance, causing stress? This isn’t to say that the audits shouldn’t be done, but please understand that everyone from the technician on the floor to management to the authority can and does have a responsibility for managing human factors. How do the authorities manage their impact on human factors?
Republished with permission from the February 2020 issue of Avionics News magazine, a monthly publication of the Aircraft Electronics Association (
www.aea.net).
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HelicopterMaintenanceMagazine.com April | May 2020
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