About Maintenance Resource Management you can read here:
1. What is the Use of Maintenance Resource Management?
1.1. An Undetected Detail Can Lead to Catastrophy
Twenty percent of all air accidents are due to errors during maintenance and repair work. The maintenance of an airliner is complex, a single detail, which has been overlooked, can lead to catastrophy.
This became apparent during the investigation of the crash of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 on January 31st 2000. Prolonged maintenance intervals resulted in the failure of a decisive screw, which moves the horizontal stabiliser at the rear of the plane. Using this stabiliser, the pilots on a Mc Donnell Douglas MD-83 control the rotation of the plane around its lateral axis.
Due to the long time until the next service, the screw was not adequately greased any more and was jammed. The pilots tried repeatedly to free the stuck horisontal stabiliser applying two different modes of operation.
The consequences were fatal. After the screw had been ripped out of its screw thread, the stabiliser flipped upwards. Following that, the aeroplane was not flyable any more and fell unsavably out of the sky into the Pacific Ocean near Los Angeles, California, USA.
The film "The Tragic Downfall of Air Alaska Flight 261, Mayday S1 EP5" deals with the accident and its investigation. The report of the National Transportation Safety Board, NTSB, about this air accident is not publicly available, contrary to many reports about other air disasters.
1.2. Negligence of Maintenance Work Under Economic Pressure
As shown in the video and documented in written form, the investigation of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 also demonstrated that maintenance work is threatened by economic pressure. In order to use the aircraft maximally and to earn money with the flights in a fiercely competitive industry, companies save on this important task, temporally, as well as financially.
1.3. Where Maintenance Resource Management Comes Into Play
Maintenance Resource Management in a Nutshell
Maintenance Resource Management is the transfer of CRM to maintenance and repair of aircraft.
As in CRM, the focus of MRM is on teamwork and human factors. How does a team of technicians prevent that a mistake has an impact on the safety of a flight?
MRM is Customised to the Special Work Environment Aircraft Maintenance
The repair and maintenance works are carried out in large hangars, in which many people work simultaneously in sometimes considerable noise. Work must also be done in parts of the plane which are difficult to access. Shift work is an additional strain.
Furthermore, maintenance resource management must ensure the safety of the employees. It is also important that any kind of collaboration is done precisely, for instance, when a shift is turned over, so that no relevant information is lost in the process.
Errors, which occur during maintenance and become noticeable on the flight, pose a potentially fatal threat to the crew, who all of a sudden now have to deal with it. Such a threat can, in turn, prompt mistakes, which can worsen the situation.
1.4. Suboptimal Maintenance on the One Hand, MRM on the Other?
Principles to ensure a safe maintenance are available to decision makers and executors in the form of maintenance resource management. Now, they are in demand and have to make important decisions.
How will the persons in charge use the budget concerning safe maintenance schedules and MRM training? What is the worth of an accident prevented if a company does not only consider consecutive costs and loss of image, but also thinks professionally and ethically?
2. Development of Maintenance Resource Management From CRM
Unfortunately, the air accident of Alaska Airlines Flight 261 was not the only one, which could be traced back to errors during maintenance. Therefore, in the 1980s and 1990s, maintenance resource management was developed in six generations, originating in CRM.
2.1. Main Topics in the Development of Maintenance Resource Management
Already the first generation contained the following items, known from CRM:
- Communication
- Conflict management
- Ability to assert oneself
- situational awareness
- Teamleading
For MRM in particular, the participants learned to appreciate the value of structured shift turnovers. Right from the start, case studies dealing with air accidents and root causes were examined during the training courses, which also involved many practical exercises.
2.2. International Cooperation of Various Institutions and Science
In the development of MRM, the collaboration of airlines, authorities, and universities was remarkable, especially in the USA, but also in Great Britain, and, due to international organisations such as the International Civil Aviation Organisation, ICAO, finally worldwide. As universities were involved, scientists accompanied the development with comprehensive trials.
3. Important Principles in Maintenance Resource Management
As we have seen with the development of MRM, the principles are not new. However, they were explicitly adapted to the work environment, the conditions, and the necessities of maintenance and repair work.
3.1. Human Factors in Maintenance Resource Management
As we have discussed during the last three months, the "dirty dozen" describes twelve important human factors. These can be transferred to maintenance resource management. Below, we will take some of them as examples.
Situational awareness is crucial with potentially dangerous tasks. Stress is caused by permanent noise, amongst others. A lack of resources comprises also time. We have already discussed pressure at the beginning of this article, maintenance work should preferably be kept short.
3.2. Further Principles, Which Were Adapted to Maintenance Resource Management
Setting Common Goals Optimises Communication
As Bonnie Hendrix, a Flight Safety´s Manager in MRM training points out, human beings communicate better if they have a common goal . It is important that we drive our goals, our goals should not drive us. The way we present ourselves professionally determines also how others communicate with us.
In aircraft maintenance and repair it is the overall goal to place a fully functioning airliner into service without any hidden mistakes. This superior aim needs to be broken down to the subtasks.
Error Management and Constant Improvement
Modern error management helps to erase causes of errors in a complex world of aircraft maintenance and to adapt checklists and SOPs for work processes as needed.
4. Maintenance Resource Management Maximises Occupational Safety
It is not only essential for the safety of the airliner and the people who will be travelling on it, but also for the safety of the technicians during their work.
4.1. Special Safety Precautions
Special safety measures must be established for dangerous tasks as otherwise severe accidents can happen. A tragic accident took place in the Midwest of the USA as a technician carried out a repair in a remote aircraft storage area without having used the lock pins to prevent the landing gear from folding. In fact, the landing gear was retracted, and the technician was crushed to death.
4.2. Techniques Known From CRM Help to Prevent Accidents
Optimisation of the Work Environment
Executors and managers can work together when designing the workplaces in order to render them as well-arranged, practical and comfortable as possible.
Workload Management
When distibuting the workload, a team should explicitly consider the risk potential of a task and employ team members who are experienced accordingly. Furthermore, dangerous work should never be executed alone without another person following it.
Situational Awareness and Speak up
Even being near an airliner, or a helicopter, or stepping onto a wing requires situational awareness, as there are areas, which may not be touched without caution.
Additionally, careful observation of the surroundings and the ongoing work processes is vital, as technicians then can detect dangers early and warn people before, for instance, a building part losens, or someone receives an electric shock.
Work According to the Guidelines and Safety Margins
Guidelines provide, for example, the right order of work steps and important checkpoints. Hence, it is assured that nothing will be forgotten, and no warning signs will be overlooked. It is a question of attitude to follow these, to optimise them as necessary, and not to endanger the safety margins which the guidelines implement.
Human Factors Are Everywhere
It goes without saying that observing the human factors helps to prevent accidents. In particular, one should take care of stress and fatigue management due to the working conditions and shift work.
5. MRM Optimises Collaboration Between Teams
When collaborating, work is handed over to another team, or teams work together interdisciplinarily. The tasks should be discussed in detail and carried out without any loss of information.
5.1. Shift Turnover
Some tasks stretch into the next shift, which is why a new team will proceed with them after the shift turnover. Now it is crucial that information about what has been done and what is still to be finished is passed on completely.
For this, a dedicated protocol for documentation is provided. Only in this manner it can be assured that, for instance, no screws on an important building part are forgotten, which may lead to a threat in the air due to this error.
5.2. More Collaboration
As almost any other professional, aircraft technicians work together with other teams and occupational groups, such as engineers from the aviation industry. Pilots receive information after maintenance work on their airliner, or help from technicians on the ground in case of particular questions.
For you, dear readers, it is evident after having studied crew resource management for so long that the principles of CRM, adapted to MRM, render collaboration safer for the aircraft technicians due to communication, checklists and special SOPs, to name a few.
6. In My Next Blog Article You Can Read About:
Maintenance resource management must be studied just as crew resource management. First of all, teams need to train practically and apply it. We will occupy ourselves with these two topics in the next blog article.
Author: Eva-Maria Schottdorf
Date: April 30th 2022