The Human Role in Aviation An overview of the HILAS project

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• The Human Role in Aviation An overview of the
  HILAS project

Nick McDonald HILAS Project Coordinator Trinity
College Dublin
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Overview

• Demands and Challenges
• How safe is the system?
• Strain in the aviation system
• New demands on design
• People are central
• Challenges to HF theory
• The HILAS project
• Flight deck evaluation
• Flight Operations and Maintenance
• Managing knowledge and learning between
  organisations

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How safe is the system?

• Aviation is an ultra-safe system
• Insufficient accidents to measure differences
• Proxy measures Safety Performance Indicators
• How do SPIs relate to safety?
• Accidents result from complex system interactions
• Complex system mechanisms relate SPIs safety
• How well do we understand these mechanisms?
• How well can an SMS control systemic failure?
• Aviation is no longer getting safer?

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Strain in the Aviation System

• Intense competition and growth
• Low cost models
• Economic downturn
• Changing business models
• New ways of working
• Where are the boundaries?
• Historical precedent is no guide
• Are regulations controlling the system?
• Can culture be regulated?
• Performance-based regulation?

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New demands on design

• Design for operational effectiveness
• Manufacturers do not just deliver technology but
  services to support their customers business
  model
• Design for operability (beyond usability)
• Integration in customers operational systems
• Health-managed aircraft maintenance
• Systems-of-systems integration
• System wide information management requires
  integrated knowledge of the operations to be
  served by the technology
• Single sky, open skies

• Can we share operational knowledge and data
  between operational organisations and the
  design/manufacturing sector?
• Gradual step by step building of trust enables
  sharing of sensitive knowledge

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People are Central

• People operate technology
• Maintenance is entirely a people process
• Flight operations people and technology operate
  together
• People also co-ordinate and integrate system
  functions, especially across system boundaries
• Dynamics of relation of people technology is
  changing
• New IT transforms the role of people across
  systems
• System-wide information management
• Lack of integrated systems for co-ordinating all
  the people functions in an organisation
• Planning, HR, operations, quality, safety, etc.

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Challenges to HF theory

• Swiss cheese (Reason) - established systemic
  basis of safety
• but post hoc analysis does not permit
  prediction
• LOSA (Helmreich) error violation are normal
• how do you detect a system deficiency?
• ADAMS project, etc. normal performance
  compensates for dysfunctions in planning,
  operational management, quality safety systems.
  
• How to change a complex homeostatic system?
• Resilience (Hollnagel Woods) - how do
  organisations anticipate and adapt to their
  environment?
• Are organisations indeterminate and
  unpredictable?
• Culture - diagnostic of organisational values,
  meanings, etc.
• Can one manage culture?
• Do cultural differences matter?

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Organisation Competent, capable, enabled to act

• System
• Functional relations
• Process
• Action
• Outcome

• Culture
• Meaning relations
• Understanding
• Values
• Making sense

Individual Competent, capable, enabled to act
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The HILAS Project

• Large scale research and development project
  funded (in part) by European Commission
• 39 partners in 13 European countries Israel
  China
• Manufacturers
• Airlines
• Maintenance organisations
• Research institutes, universities
• RTD companies
• Critical mass to transform HF capacity in
  aviation
• Initiated 1st. June 2005, ends 31 October 2009
• Co-ordinated by TCD

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The Consortium
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What is HILAS?

• Three sets of processes
• Managing performance, risk and change in flight
  operations and aircraft maintenance
• Human factors evaluation of new technologies
  and applications on the flight deck
• Inter-organisational learning and innovation

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The HILAS Lifecycle Model
Operator approval
Certification
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Operational model
Human/system evaluation
HF evaluation
Task analysis
VR mock up
VR validation
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Flight Deck
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The HILAS Lifecycle Model
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The Operational Process is central

• Mapping the process
• How does it normally go?
• Reporting on the process
• How did it go this time?
• Analysing risk in the process
• Where is the process vulnerable?
• Understanding how to improve the process
• What needs to change and how?
• Tracking and evaluating improvements
• Were they effective in reducing risk?
• Change the process with new technology
• How would the technology change the process?

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The HILAS Lifecycle Model
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Knowledge Management System
Rockwell Collins
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Innovation
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Thank you!