A Dozen Dirty Habits in Aircraft Maintenance - Part: 2

Follow the preceding in "A Dozen Dirty Habits in Aircraft Maintenance - Part 1": 1".

Twelve Human Factors in Aircraft Maintenance or "The Dirty Dozen"

Aircraft Maintenance Management is about many things. At its core, it is about mobilizing resources to achieve output or results. Mobilized resources usually consist of labor, materials and equipment. As we tried to explain in our SHELL Model in Aircraft Maintenance article; People interact in a complex network of hardware, software, work environment, people as individuals and people as a group, and they interact with those in this network in ever-changing ways.

Gordon Dupont identified twelve factors that contribute to errors of judgment and ultimately performance errors in aircraft maintenance activities and called them the dozen dirty factors in aircraft maintenance. These human factors can be listed as follows, with the first six habits described in Chapter 1: 1. This section will describe the remaining six habits:

1. Lack of communication 

2. Laxity caused by complacency, complacency

3. Lack of information

4. Distraction, distraction

5. Lack of Teamwork

6. Physical and mental fatigue, burnout

7. Inadequate or lack of resources

8. Pressure on the employee

9. Lack of self-confidence

10. Stress

11. Lack of awareness

12. Norms

7. Inadequate or lack of resources

Large and complex maintenance processes are subject to numerous requirements for conditional execution. Capacities and skills are often more important than just the number of employees. Resource scarcity is not only due to a lack of qualified individuals, but also to a lack of resources they may need. There is a need for granularity in complexity. This means the right resources in the right place at the right time. 

If not all parts are available to complete a maintenance task, there may be pressure on the technician to complete the task using old or unsuitable parts. Whatever the task, resources also include personnel, time, data, tools, skills, experience and knowledge, etc. A lack of any of these resources can hinder one's ability to complete a task. The quality of available resources, including support, may be low or inadequate for the task.

When appropriate resources are available and in our hands, we have a better chance of completing a task more effectively, accurately and efficiently. Forward planning is therefore essential for acquiring, storing and positioning resources. It will also be necessary to maintain the available resources appropriately; this includes the people in the organization.

8. Pressure on the employee

Internal and external pressures are always present. The right amount of stress at the right time, in the right place, can be motivating. However, in large complex care processes, multiple vectors exert pressure on individuals, teams and the care process as a whole. Individual pressure often stems from a misperception that asking for help is seen as a sign of weakness. Internal pressures can be alleviated through a number of time management techniques, including Prioritizing, delegating and asking for help. Escalation of problems requires effective communication regimes to be in place.

Pressure is to be expected when working in a dynamic environment. However, when the pressure to meet a deadline hinders our ability to complete tasks accurately, it has become too much. It is the old argument of Quality versus Quantity; and in aviation we should never knowingly lower the quality of our work. Lack of resources, especially when time can create pressure; and also from our inability to cope with a situation. We may face direct or indirect pressure from the company, from our customers and even from our colleagues. However, one of the most common sources of pressure is ourselves. We put pressure on ourselves to do things we can't handle, especially other people's problems, trying to save face and positively promoting superpowers we don't have. These poor judgments are often the result of making assumptions about what is expected of us.

Learning assertiveness skills allows an employee to say "No", "Stop!" and communicate their concerns to coworkers, customers and the Company. These skills are important and when deadlines are critical, extra resources and assistance should always be sought to ensure that the task is completed at the required quality level.

As succinctly illustrated in the picture below, pressure should not be put on the employee.

9. Lack of self-confidence

Lack of assertiveness is often associated with a lack of self-confidence and poor 360° communication. It is often shown as a reluctance to speak up or take action. Assertiveness is typically combined with strong self-confidence. A Care Manager was once asked if there was any penalty for expressing his opinion. His answer was "no, you have to have an opinion and own it".

An important maintenance decision must be made unanimously by the team. The behavior of an expert who does not allow others to voice their concerns about the chosen measure is dangerous, because he or she may steer the solution himself or herself without consulting the team, which increases the likelihood of making mistakes.

Team members should listen calmly and rationally and invite each interlocutor to give feedback on the information received. Any criticism should always be constructive and never punitive.

Both failing to raise our concerns and not allowing others to raise theirs creates ineffective communications and undermines teamwork. Non-assertive team members may be forced to go by majority decision, even if they believe it is wrong and dangerous to do so.

Assertiveness is a style of communication and behavior that enables us to express our feelings, thoughts, concerns, beliefs and needs in a positive and productive way. When we are assertive, we invite and allow others to assert themselves without feeling threatened, weakened or discredited. Expressing one's opinion assertively should not be confused with aggression. It is about communicating directly, but honestly and appropriately; respecting the views and needs of others, but not compromising our own standards.

Assertiveness techniques can be learned and they focus on staying calm, being logical, using specific examples rather than generalizations, and receiving feedback. Most importantly, any criticism should be directed at actions and their results, not at people and personalities, which allows others to maintain dignity and allow for a productive outcome.

10. Stress

There are many types of stress. Typically in the aviation environment there are two different types, acute and chronic. Acute stress is caused by real-time demands placed on our senses, mental processing and physical body, such as dealing with an emergency or working under time pressure with insufficient resources. Chronic stress accumulates and results from the long-term demands placed on the physiology by the demands of life, such as family relationships, finances, illness, bereavement, divorce or even winning the lottery. When we are stressed by these constant and long-term life events, this can mean that our threshold for responding to demands and pressure at work can be lowered. We can therefore overreact inappropriately at work, too often and too easily.

Stress caused by lack of stimulation in the workplace is discussed above under the heading Lethargy.

Some early visible signs of stress include changes in personality and mood, errors in judgment, lack of concentration and poor memory. Individuals may experience difficulty sleeping, increased fatigue and digestive problems. Long-term signs of stress include susceptibility to infections, increased use of stimulants and self-medication, absenteeism, illness and depression.

It is important to recognize the early signs of stress and determine whether it is acute or chronic. Coping with the daily demands at work can be achieved through simple breathing and relaxation techniques. Perhaps more effective, however, is to have ready channels of communication to discuss the issue and help rationalize perceptions. It is entirely appropriate that some of these channels include social interaction with peers. As with fatigue, sleep, diet and exercise are important factors that help reduce stress and build resilience to stressors. If the stress is chronic, then definitive lifestyle changes will be required; this should be achieved with the support of the Company. Companies should therefore have employee assistance (or well-being) policies that include stress reduction programs.

People are not just the sum of their work experiences. They are the sum of these and a wide range of personal experiences and situations. Stress can originate from outside as well as inside the work environment. If the cumulative effect of the range of stresses affecting people is viewed as a bell-shaped curve, then in large complex maintenance and troubleshooting processes, as maintenance teams grow, more and more people will fall within the stress curves. Some thrive under stress, while others become a complete disaster.

Stress is a physical, chemical and emotional state that can damage the organism with its long-term effect. It is therefore essential to take action before stress negatively affects the work being done.

11. Lack of awareness

Working alone and thinking only of one's own responsibilities can lead to tunnel vision; a partial view and lack of awareness of the impact of our actions on others and the wider task. Such lack of awareness can also be caused by other human factors such as stress, fatigue, pressure and distraction.

It is important to build experience throughout our career, particularly in relation to the roles and responsibilities of those we work with and our own place within the wider Team. Developing our foresight is crucial to avoid the impact of our actions on others. It is an attitude of professionalism and constant "what if...?" Asking others to check our work and challenge our decisions is useful to gain relevant experience and broaden our awareness. Vigilance is closely related to situational awareness and workplace procedures such as screening, two-way communication and the use of checklists will help to maintain vigilance.

With regard to complacency, lack of awareness can be caused by lack of alertness, lack of relevant experience or lack of vigilance. We have discussed some of the factors that can contribute to lack of alertness, such as distraction and fatigue. Lack of situational awareness is often associated with lack of alertness. It arises from a vague mental picture of what is going on around an individual and how it could develop.

Strategies to reduce the potential for lack of mindfulness include frequent safety grouping together and avoiding single-task obsession. Frequent communication to check and confirm the current state of play is also useful. 

Monitoring the work of other coworkers with a cooperative feeling, or vice versa, indicates an increased awareness of the work environment, which increases the likelihood that the final product will be of high quality.

12. Norms

The picture says, "Forget the Maintenance Manual. We do it faster here". The norms are depicted with a forklift used to assemble a jet engine showing how this procedure is carried out in this maintenance facility, although imperfectly, it has become a norm as the majority perform it this way. Always follow defined operating procedures. Remember that "norms" do not make it right.

Norms are unwritten rules followed by defined groups. They can also be presented as behaviors tolerated by similar groups. One of the problems with norms in large complex projects is that they cannot be consistent or supportive across sub-elements of the project. On one megaproject, a major contractor needed tie-downs if he was working at heights above 1.8 meters. The adjacent contractor had no such requirement and labor was coming from the same union hall. The norms involved were in conflict and the logical compromise parties, the owner and the union, did not try to reconcile this conflict of norms.

Norms can sometimes act to undermine the effectiveness of established project processes. They can also cloud an assessment of the true state of large complex projects. Successful team building efforts can align project processes with team values and norms that support the overall mission.

It is important to analyze the cultural context of the workplace as it can facilitate bad habits as well as more or less safe procedures. In a company, it is normal that some habits, ingrained over time, are repeated even by new workers, even though they are not written in any standard. These "unwritten rules" should be avoided and strict compliance with formal regulations should be strictly observed to ensure the highest level of safety.

Workplace practices develop over time, with experience and often under the influence of a particular workplace culture. These practices can be both good and bad, safe and unsafe; they are referred to as "the way we do things around here" and become the norm. Unfortunately, such practices are subject to unwritten rules or behaviors that deviate from required rules, procedures and instructions. These Norms can then be enforced through peer pressure and habit enforcement. It is important to understand that most Norms are not designed to meet all circumstances and are therefore not adequately tested against potential threats.

Rules and procedures must be designed and tested and therefore strictly enforced and followed. Where employees feel pressure to deviate from or go around a procedure, this information should be fed back so that the procedure can be reviewed and changed if necessary. Developing assertiveness can allow employees to express concerns about unsafe Norms despite peer pressure.

Have airplane accidents decreased thanks to these studies?

According to EASA's 2020 annual safety review, of the 144 accidents involving commercial air transport airlines and air taxi aircraft, only 15 were caused by human error. Furthermore, the report shows a downward trend from 2016 to 2019, suggesting a slow but gradual decline in accidents due to human factors.

While such studies may seem of secondary importance, they represent our best understanding of the human error component behind aviation accidents. Indeed, with a systematic approach, they provide the basis for the study and development of an area where previously only "opinion" existed.

It is important to note that an individual's senses are neither universal nor infallible. They do not receive all input from their environment and often tend to deteriorate after too many hours of work and no longer function properly. In any case, there will always be human error, but the aim is to minimize it as much as possible and, if it happens, to prevent it from leading to catastrophic consequences.

All the factors discussed so far have led to changes and improvements over time in the procedures and instructions laid down in official regulations. This has reduced the friction caused by the interactions between parts of the maintenance system, significantly limiting errors over time and consequently reducing accidents caused by incorrect or inadequate maintenance.

Conclusion:

Human factors are important in all aircraft maintenance processes, but in large and complex aircraft maintenance processes the web of interactions grows in non-linear ways. The dirty dozen presented here provide an initial checklist for maintenance managers and specialists on situations they are likely to encounter in their maintenance activities.