Module 9 Human Factors

9.1 General                                                                                                                         

 The need to take human factors into account when performing maintenance;

Incidents attributable to human factors/human error; Murphy’s law.

 

9.2 Human performance and limitations                                                                         
Vision; Hearing;, information processing; Attention and perception; Memory;
Claustrophobia and physical access.

 

9.3 Social psychology                                                                                                                   
Accountability and responsibility:

individual and group; Motivation and demotivation; 
Peer pressure;
Cultural issues;
Teamwork;
Management, supervision, and leadership.

 

9.4 Factors that affect performance                                                                                     
Fitness/health; Stress: domestic and work related; 
Time pressure and deadlines;
Workload: overload, underload, and workload management;
Sleep and fatigue, shift work;
Alcohol, medication, drug abuse;
Lack of manpower.

 

9.5 Physical environment                                                                                                      
Noise and fumes;
Illumination;
Climate and temperature;
Motion and vibration;
Working environment;
Situational awareness.

 

9.6 Tasks                                                                                                                                                      

Physical work;
Repetitive tasks, complacency;
Visual inspection;
Complex systems;
Critical maintenance tasks and error-capturing methods;
Technical documentation: access, use, and quality.

 

9.7 Communication                                                                                                                        
Within and between teams;
Work logging and recording;
Shift handover;
Keeping up to date, currency;
Dissemination of information.

 

9.8 Human error 
Error models and theories;
Types of error in maintenance tasks;
Implications of errors (e.g. accidents);
Organisational errors;
Avoiding and managing errors.

 

9.9 Safety management                                                                                                                 
Risk management;
Occurrence reporting;
Safety culture
Just culture;
Identifying, avoiding, and reporting hazards;
Organisational human-factors programme: professionalism and integrity, error-provoking
behaviour, reporting errors, disciplinary policy, error investigation, action to address
problems, feedback, assertiveness;
Dealing with emergencies.

 

9.10 The ‘Dirty Dozen’ and risk-mitigation                                                                              

 The ‘Dirty Dozen’: the twelve most common human-factors erors in maintenance:
Lack of communication,
Lack of teamwork,
Lack of assertiveness,
Complacency,
Fatigue,
Stress,
Lack of knowledge,
Lack of resources,
Lack of awareness,
Distraction,
Pressure,
Norms.
Risk-mitigation methods.