9.

2 Human Performance and Limitations

Vision
One of your engineer was diagnosed with 'hypermetropia'. Explain the cause, effect, protection and
care.

9.2 Human Performance and Limitations

What are Human capabilities, weakness and advantages ?
Capabilities

- the physical and mental human capabilities such as vision, hearing, information
processing, attention and perception, memory, judgement and decision making.

Weakness
Physically

- human becomes fatigued, affected by cold, can break bones in work place accidents

Mentally

- human can make errors, have limited perceptual powers, can exhibit poor
judgement due to lack of skills and knowledge
- human performance is also affected by social and emotional factors, therefore
failure by aircraft maintenance engineers can also affect the safety of aircraft

Age

- Problem developing in the eye, gradually deteriorates vision, hearing deteriorates

naturally as one grows older
- mental capabilities are likely to degrade and eventually fail under certain conditions
(e.g. stress)

Fear

- Claustrophobia, physical access and fear of heights (acrophobia)

Information
Processing

- once we have formed a mental model of a situation, we often seek information

which will confirm this model and consicously reject information which suggest
that this model is incorrect

Advantages

- situation awareness : the ability to make decision and judgement

9.3 Social Psychology

Management, supervision and leadership
What is Dirty Dozen ? Give 3 examples, together with their safety nets.
- Developed by Gordon DuPont for Air Transport Canada (5m)
- It introduced 12 areas of potential problems in H.F due to spate of maintenance related aviation
incidents and accidents in the late 80's and early 90's
(10m)
Note : Choose any 3 of the following main points
Complacency
- Over confidence due to increasing proficiency could lead to complacency setting in
- Errors in judgement appears
- relaxation of one's standard in decision making
- due to constant repetition of task
Safety nets
- train to expect to find faults and never sign anything you didn't do
Lack of communication
- worker leaving an unfinshed job without communicating to the next worker in any written/ verbal
form assuming the next worker knows what to do
Safety nets
- use log books to communicate or for handover, discuss before and after work NEVER ASSUME
Lack of knowledge
- maintenance personnel repeating mistake over and over when carrying out a certain job.
- lack of knowledge in how to carry out certain task because of rapid pace at which technology is
evolving
- increased of the knowledge required when performing certain task
Safety nets
- get trained on type rating of the aircraft
- don't rely on memory
- use relevant and up-to-date manuals
- ask help from someone or technical representative
Distraction
- any occurrence requiring undivided attention
- interuptions occurred : leave task for a reason and misses step upon return to the task
Safety nets
- always finish the job
- mark uncompleted job (e.g. using masking tape)
- when return to the job, go back 3 steps
- use check list

9.4 Factors Affecting Performance

Time pressure and deadlines
Discuss the pressure imposed on an LAE in an aircraft maintenance organisation. List at least two
examples.
An aircraft maintenance engineer felt various kinds of pressures imposed on him when carrying out
aircraft maintenance tasks. Two examples are time pressure and dead lines.
Actual Pressure
- where specified deadlines are imposed by an external source (management or supervisors) and
passed on to the engineers
Perceived Pressure
- where engineers feels there are time pressure when carrying out task, even when no deadlines are
set
Self Imposed Presure
- engineers set themselves deadlines to complete a task before a break or before the end of a shift
Thus engineers have two driving forces :
Deadlines handed down to them and responsibilities to carry out a safe job
The effect of time pressure and deadlines :
Some time pressure is stimulating and may improve task performance
Excessive time pressure :
Either actual or perceived, external or self imposed, that due care and attention when carrying out
task dimishes and more errors will be made. Errors can lead to incidents and accidents.

9.4 Factors Affecting Performance

Shiftwork
Describe the problems of shift work.
Shift handover is the source of many errors.
Lower productivity - due to reduce in performance and output cause by fatigue, sleep disruptions,
(poor job performance) emotional issues and working long shift hours
High Error rate

- due to physical and mental fatigued

High Absentee rate

- due to family related issues/ family stress.

For example, child care cause shift workers to take short period of time off

Physical problems

- personnel injuries due to lack of concentration (or errors) cause by fatigue

Health problems

- Long periods of night work can be bad to the health of shift workers.

Psychological problems

- problems of rotating shift work especially working at night :

Lack of sleep, fatigue, and emotional

Dissatisfaction and poor morale

- sources of dissatisfaction and poor morale are :

long hours, high work load, disturbed wake sleep cycles and
increase domestic conflict.

Note

: Shift work disturbs normal sleep cycles.

9.5 Physical Environment

Describe 4 main physical environment factors which can affect maintenance personels.
The interaction between Liveware and the environment can cause stress.
For Base maintenance, people working inside the hangar and those working in the 'Line' are
subjected to heat, noise, illumination and fumes.
NOISE
- noise in workplace can have both short term and long term negative effects
- interfere with verbal communication
- damage workers hearing and
- mask warning signals
- noise level above 90 dB for 8 hours will cause hearing damage
- extensive noise can cause annoyance, and create irritability
HEAT
- comfortable temperature for most people in normal clothing is 20C
- above 30C : discomfort and DECREASE in efficiency;
attention of the person becomes LESS;
INCREASE in heart rate, blood pressure and sweat;
can cause heat stroke.
- at 10C
: at low temperature, the body rapidly lose feeling and control in the hands
FUMES
- exposure to various kinds of fluids and chemicals which gives off vapour fumes
- Inhalation can cause serious health implication and also other problems such as eye irritation
ILLUMINATION
- inappropriate or insufficient lighting can lead to mistake in work task or increase time required to
do the job/ work
- when using 'task lighting' (portable lighting), should be placed close to the work as possible
- arrange so that it does not cause glare

9.7 Communication
Discuss the recommended handover procedure at the end of the shift. Which procedure would you
use as priority and why ?
Shift handover
- between shift supervisors to ensure accurate, reliable information across the shift is handover
Walk throughs
- supervisors and certifying staff to meet and exchange detailed information related to individual
jobs and tasks.
- A more effective way to communicate this information is for the incoming shift and out going
personnel to go on the task issues while examining the actual job on the hangar floor or at the work
place.
Task handover
- Handing over a task directly to another person.
- It is done face to face using verbal and written communication task card or non routine cards are
accurately completed
- Identifying at what stage in the task the job has reached
Any deviations from normal working procedures MUST be clearly highlighted.
It is CAA's requirement that any deviation is recorded by outgoing person and during verbal
communication and walk through the deviation as reinforced.
Handing over a task for somebody to complete at a later stage.
Total reliance has to be placed on written communication, a single medium, with no means to
question and test a trueunderstanding by the person who is expected to finish the job.
E.g. Schedule task and Unschedule task
Contact telephone no.

9.8 Human Error

Error models and theories
Describe the SHEL Model and how it is used in the study of HF
The SHEL model is used to aid in the understanding of HF, the inter-relationship between
the aviation system, resources, environment and the human component (Liveware)
- This model was developed by Edwards in the year 1972
- SHEL model is a name derived from the initial letters of it's components
S SOFTWARE
- maintenance procedures (e.g. SOP, MOE), maintenance manuals, checklists
- from a safety point of view, misinterpretation of procedures, confusing manuals or poorly
designed checklist (e.g. checklist not in sequence)
can affect the Airworthiness of aircraft
H HARDWARE
- the physical structure of the aircraft, tools, test equipments, design of the flight deck
- Not enough tools, inappropriate equipments, poor aircraft design
can affect maintenance of aircraft
- must be maintenance friendly
E ENVIRONMENT (conditions in hangar, workshop, offices)
- physical environment, temperature, weather, working conditions, organisation structure and
climate
- uncomfortable work place, extreme temperature, noise, poor lighting
can affect safety of the aircraft
L LIVEWARE (people at the centre of the model)
- the maintenance engineers, supervisors, technicians, planners, managers, their capabilities,
limitations and interaction between Liveware with Liveware
- shortage of manpower, lack of supervision, lack of support from management, team work
can also affect the maintenance and safety of the aircraft