Human factors should not be underestimated in maintenance.
In fact, some studies suggest
that between 12% to 20% of accidents in aviation
are the result of maintenance human factors issues,
or if you like, 50% of engine-related delays or issues
are due to aviation maintenance.
When it comes to adopting a human factors approach,
we need to think about it from a safety management point of view.
I mean, really, human factors should be integrated, if you like,
into our safety management system.
Now, that's not... you know, that difficult.
Even in a small organisation, you can do simple things, like,
you know, having those regular briefings and toolbox talks,
encouraging people to speak up, not just about hazards and near misses,
but also about the errors that perhaps they engage in
or they think occur.
Having regular committee meetings,
maybe a dedicated person that you can go to
that might not be the manager, perhaps,
and then using all that information
to ensure that people are very clear
about what the ongoing human factors problems are.
MAN: It all comes back to just taking the elements
of a safety management system, formalising them,
because many of us have got lots of great ideas in our head,
lots of lessons we've learnt along the way,
but the intent with a safety management system
is to formalise how we actually document our processes
to actually be able to show and demonstrate
that we've taken some lessons in the past
and we've turned that into our process and our policy
that drives what we're doing every day.
In general, the workplace that we've seen in the video,
they're all good people.
They're all genuinely turning up, doing a good job,
and wanting to do the right thing by the company.
But if you look at some of those little factors,
the pressure that was put on by the owner of the company, essentially,
and the relationship - you see that little bit of conflict
between he and his wife -
that in itself is just pressure that's increasing,
I guess, a drive to get something done
without potentially looking at some of those other good ideas -
letting the customer know that maybe, "Look, the aircraft won't be ready,
"and we're going to do the job... it'll be a day late,
"but we've got some options for you."
So you tend to find when people start to get really busy,
they get task-focused - they get so set on just the task they're doing,
they start to lose their ability to see other options.
We then look at the workplace. We've got the young apprentice.
So the new guy. What do we notice that he's wearing?
He's got an iPod in one ear. OK, that is a part of changing society.
What you do need to understand, though,
is any LAME working in that sort of workplace
at times is expected to be able to perform a task 100%.
If you look at sports psychology 101,
if you've got to perform critical tasks
in what we would consider a tightly coupled system
like working in a maintenance organisation,
where your errors can lead to catastrophic outcomes,
you have to train yourself to be able to remove some of those distractions
and actually be in the moment, where you are focusing solely on the job.
MAN 2: Some organisations have come up with standards.
They go under a number of different names,
but they come under a universal standard
that they apply across their business.
And they may be 10 or 12 different standards that apply equally,
and one of those can include
distracting personnel in the workplace
whilst they're performing their work.
That as well may be included in poster campaigns,
through, you know, in-house training programs, to reinforce those values,
but they include other things, such as only accepting authorisations,
like deviation authorisations, in writing
from, you know, approved personnel,
rather than verbal instructions -
you know, the removal of 'Do not touch' tags, for example,
from critical systems whilst maintenance is being performed.
We saw in the video a couple of small changes.
The formal meetings around the table
and removing some distractions like the mobile phone.
Many people might look and go, "Oh, come on, guys."
You know, "That's just some minor changes. Updating the whiteboard."
But what we know -
you don't need to invest thousands of dollars in a cultural reform program.
It's the attention sometimes to the little things
that will actually make a big difference
and can significantly improve the behaviour within the workplace.
Look, one thing I've learned over time, it's getting the balance right.
There's no doubt... I'll be honest.
Anyone that says "Safety's our only priority,"
that's not correct.
Priority's to have a sustainable business, OK,
and that means cash flow.
Now, what do we know is a big enabler of that?
Safety is a critical enabler, because in this scenario,
if the aircraft had crashed,
that would have been the end of that business
for, what in hindsight we could say, were some relatively cheap fixes.
So the balance that a lot of systems are not getting right
is making sure they're empowering someone to take on
the accountability and responsibility as a safety manager
and doing it properly.
EDKINS: People talk about generative cultures.
These are cultures where they're not complacent.
They're looking for the next risk or the next problem.
So, again, to encourage that,
you've got to give people opportunity and the courage to speak up,
and some organisations I work with
have very simple speaking-up or intervening policies,
giving people the licence to intervene.
Other ways that you can do that is create scenarios or environments
where people come together to talk about how the job is being done,
encourage debriefing after potentially complex jobs
to learn from that.
This creates knowledge, if you like,
about where things can be further improved.
One of the ways you can really judge whether or not
an organisation has a good safety culture
and also commitment from management
is when you talk to management
and then you talk to people on the shop floor,
they say the same things,
that their perception of the organisation is the same.
Quite often, we see a mismatch between
what management feel is happening
and what people on the shop floor feel is happening.
So...in order for people to be valued and feel valued
and have a strong culture,
everyone should really, really have the same understanding
of where they are, what's important and that safety is a top priority
and actions really do match words.