Abstract
Safety and efficiency factors in aviation industry have increasingly become central factors and major players have continued to improve various factors that lead to improved safety and efficiency.There has been major technological advancements that have led to the current progress in safety and efficiency in the aviation industry. However, the issue of human factor has increasingly received focus after the realization that human errors are the factors behind aviation incidents and accident. This has led to the development of knowledge, skills and flexibility of the staff in the industry ensure the exercise of good judgement, which will ensure safety assurance. Human factor in the aviation industry establishes the relationship between human beings, technology and the working environment as discussed in the paper.
Human Factors in the Aviation Safety
Introduction
Human factors have increasingly become popular in the aviation industry and especially in the commercial aviation. This has been due to the realization that human errors are the most predominant factors behind aviation incidents and accidents. There has been major technological advancement in the aviation industry, but humans continue to play an ultimate role in ensuring safety and success of the industry globally. Therefore, there is a need to ensure continued development of knowledge, skills and flexibility of the staff in the industry to ensure the exercise of good judgement, which will ensure safety improvement. This has led to a consequent increase investment, in trainings, purchase of equipments and systems, which aim at achieving long term safety and success. Technological improvements have been dramatic and tremendous making it difficult to predict how human beings will relate to it, in determining human performance.
This paper seeks to evaluate various aspects on human roles in ensuring safety in the aviation industry. The major focus of this paper will be on human capabilities and performance in ensuring safety in the industry. In addition, the paper will evaluate the aspects of aircraft and aircraft control, as well as aviation controls and designs in improving safety. There are various human factors, which play an imperative role in ensuring the safety such as basic aviation physiology. In addition, the aspects of health and hygiene also play an essential role in ensuring safety of the industry, as human beings operate optimally when in good health conditions. Technological advancements have also led to improvement of human information processing and reduction in human errors.
Human errors have been attributed to more than 70 percent of the aviation industry accidents and safety issues. Therefore, improving trainings, and development of skills as well as improving adoption of technology plays an imperative role in increasing reliability and decision making. Developing skills and knowledge is also essential in ensuring effective avoidance and management of errors.
Human Capabilities and Performance in Aviation Safety
Human capabilities and performance play an imperative role in ensuring safety in the aviation industry. The inherent strengths and limitations of human being affect the performance of the staff. For example, effective decision making requires skills and knowledge of the person making the decisions. In studying human factors, the focus is on establishing how people operate and interface with various products, machines and systems in the environment, they are working. The role of human factors in the aviation industry is traced back during the world wars evaluating the role of scientists and engineers in ensuring safety especially of the flight systems.
However, in the modern aviation industry there are various exponential human factors with diverse actors such as scientists, engineers, flight attendants, pilots, mechanics and machinists, aviation security and baggage handlers among others. These players are involved in various duties, applying their knowledge, capabilities and limitations in performance of a wide range of activities within the industry. The operators in the aviation industry interact and interface with a cross functional, high work load and complex environment. In addition, the operators also operate under strict time constraints, where optimal performance is required. In evaluating human performance in the aviation industry there are various areas of interest, which include perceptions, attention, workload, decision making, learning, memory, language processing biomechanics and anthropometry.
There are various factors that affect human performance such as design and evaluation of tasks. There has been various factors that have been used in evaluating human performance such as evaluation of cause and effect of fatigue on performance of an operator. Various contributing factors have been identified as the major factors influencing performance such as cumulative sleep debt, extended shifts and work weeks, circadian misalignment and rotating shift schedules. The management in the aviation industry should facilitate assessment of situational analysis and awareness of various factors affecting performance such as workload. In addition, there should be frequent assessment of cabin crew and cabin incidents of passenger and flight attendant injuries. There are various incidents that form the basis of crew performance such as scalds from hot coffee, unexpected luggage departure from bins and turbulence related injuries. In addition, there should be frequent analysis of movement errors by operators, as well a cabin passenger safety.
Various models have been developed in explaining the human factor and performance in the aviation industry. For example, Hawkins developed the SHELL model in explaining the relationships in the aviation industry environment. This model constitutes four components, which include the software such as procedures and symbology, hardware composed of the machines, environment and the liveware, which is the human factor. However, the human element is the central component in the model as it is the most flexible component in the system with the ability to interact directly with other components (MJPerry & JDPerezgonzalez, 2010).
There are various factors that affect performance of human in the aviation industry. These include the design of the workplace, body measurements, and movements. Therefore, the design decisions must accommodate various human dimensions such as age, ethnicity and gender. When designing the aircraft cabin equipments, seats and furnishings and emergency equipments, it is essential to take into account the shape and size of humans. There is also a need to ensure sufficient in the supply of basic commodities such as food, water and oxygen to ensure effective and efficient performance. In addition, these factors play an imperative role in ensuring the health and well being of the crew members.
However, various factors limit the ability of human beings performance of vital tasks. For example, human rely on senses to collect and detect various environment related information. However, the human senses are subject to limitation in various aspects. For example, during the night, the eyes of a human being are limited in seeing external objects due to low light levels, this limits the performance of a pilot during night flights. Information processing capabilities of humans are also subject to various limitations such as working memory capacity, retrieval considerations and time frame for decision making. However, this is also influenced by various other factors such as motivation, workload and stress. Therefore, when designing modern technologies, such as in aircraft displays, instruments, warning and alerting systems there is a need to take into account the limitations of human capabilities in information processing, which will facilitate prevention of human error.
Human Factors in Aircraft and Air Traffic Control
Human factors in the aviation industry studies have made significant progress where the previous focus was specifically on the pilot and cabin crews. The progress in these studies has also led to a broadening of the scope of these studies and evaluate the importance of the human role in aircraft and air traffic control. The perceived low profile of air traffic control personnel in the aviation industry has been due to limited visibility to the public as compared to their uniformed counterparts in the cabins (GRAEBER, 2013). However, the increase in the number of airplanes has led to an increase in the workload of the air traffic controllers.
Various studies and observations have recognized the evolution air traffic controller roles from the perceived mechanistic to a modern perspective of a more socio-technical approach. This approach focuses more on the dynamics and adoption of technology by controllers. There has been various issues on workplace design and ergonomic issues in air traffic controller duties, but the primary focus has been given to the role of human performance. These roles include the aspect of decision making, problem solving, communication and teamwork. In addition, improvement of technology has also led to automation of various activities leading to alleviation of stress and facilitating long term growth of air traffic.
Various human attributes have been identified as recommendable for air traffic control personnel such as high motivation, emotional stability, basic medical fitness, attention to details, tolerance to workload and teamwork among others. However, there has been a shortfall of manpower, even though the majority of the population can meet the general criteria. However, this has been due to public perceptions of the duties and responsibilities of an air traffic control personnel. The air traffic controller environment is a complex environment consisting of a vast array of information, which is presented in visual, tactile and auditory form. The information processing capabilities of ATC have been identified as the major determinants of precision of decision making and ability to deal with task demands.
There has been a simplification of the air traffic control environment as a uniform global activity. However, the cognitive ability of the personnel varies greatly across different positions. For example, non-radar oceanic control position, radar (en route control position) radar (approach/departure control position) and non-radar (tower control position). These different positions involve different tasks and the personnel also require diverse knowledge and cognitive ability. Various events and activities are involved in the air traffic controller. For example, the air traffic controllers are involved in various external events and activities such as studying and understanding weather patterns, air traffic, serviceability of equipments and unexpected events such as emergencies. Situational awareness and analysis in air traffic control has been defined as the perception of elements in the environment within a volume of time and space comprehending the meanings and ability to project the status of the near future. This is based on training, professional knowledge and mastery of procedures, rules and practices encompassed in their responsibilities and roles.
Air traffic controllers are in various cases required to make decisions under pressure, which is an essential skill. However, the majority of decisions made by air traffic controllers are dependent on a large repertoire of a well analyzed and organized situational awareness and information from long term memory (D-Malone, 2011).
Human Factors in Aviation Operation and Design
In aviation, understanding of human factors focuses on understanding how well human can integrate with technology, which is translated into developing better designs, trainings, policies and procedures, which facilitate improvement of human performance. There is a need to develop a good operating environment for flight crews, maintenance and technicians. This will facilitate improvement in usability, comfort, reliability and maintainability. Analysis of operational safety and development of methods and tools will aid operators in avoiding and managing errors. Therefore, safety specialists, test and training pilot, mechanics and cabin crews should work closely with engineers, to ensure proper integration of human factors in designing airplanes.
In the past recent decades, there has been tremendous improvements in designs, which have been responsible for the progress that have been made in reducing the rates of accidents. In addition, it has also led to improvement in efficiency in the aviation industry due to improved engines and structures. Development of design has also led to prevention of human errors as well as efficient management when errors occur. Various technological developments have led to improvement of analytical designs such as mock up and simulator evaluations, which facilitate evaluation of how well the designs meet the requirements.
The advances in technology have led to the development of human oriented designs, through incorporation of technology that takes into account the customer inputs. This has been done through manufacturers involving their customers and potential customers, when developing designs. For example, when Boeing was developing the Boeing 777, the designers worked side by side with the mechanics, flight crews and other recognized stakeholders to ensure incorporation of human factors. This has led to the development of new interfaces and automation, which have played an imperative role in reducing human error.
There has been myths that cockpit automation reduces the need for human expertise and knowledge. On the contrary, advanced automation has led to the creation of new knowledge and skills gap and the pilots are forced to ensure development of knowledge and skills to ensure efficiency. Prior to the automations in the early 1980’s pilots acted as the central information processing units focusing on the planned route on a 3-D display in their heads. An automaton of cockpits was done to facilitate reduction of workload and increase efficiency in the management of the aircraft. The increased automation of the cockpit has led to increased publicity of the changing role of pilots. This has rendered pilots more of managers, rather than the role of a controller. Therefore, the automations can be classified as important aspects of designs that improve and resolve human factor issues. The automations have also led to reduction of pilot workload, which leads to preoccupation, as the attention of the pilot is drawn in other activities. Under the load of the pilots makes it difficult for them to sustain attention due to low workload. This may lead to complacency as flight crews over reliance on the cockpit system might make them not to recognize when there is a failure in the system (Mark, 2008).
Therefore, the human factor is about people and their working environment through the relationships that are developed between the people and equipments, procedures and environment. In the aviation industry, human factors encompass physiology, psychology and engineering. They involve the overall performance of human beings in the aviation industry, optimizing the overall performance of the people and the systematic application of human science. However, the basic and important aspects that are put into consideration in the human factor are safety and efficiency.
References
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