Automating Contextualized Maintenance Documentation

The article deals with the quality management of interactive electronic technical manuals on the operation and repair of aircraft. It has been established that the quality management tools for interactive electronic maintenance and repair documentation for aircraft do not fully satisfy the existing set of specific requirements for the technological process of their design and development, as well as the implementation of proactive quality management procedures in it. This suggests a lack of scientific, methodological and technological security of quality systems in the design and development of interactive electronic maintenance and repair documentation for aircraft. The quality management of interactive electronic technical manuals for the operation and repair of aviation equipment is a sequential process of iterative procedures for evaluating and improving the quality of the specified information and software tools for logistics support.

Objective In this study, a hybrid human error assessment (HHEA) approach is proposed to determine the probability of aircraft maintenance technician (AMT) error occurring during aircraft repair. Background The human error assessment and reduction technique (HEART) is the first-generation empirical human reliability analysis (HRA) approach. Although this technique is used in several industries, AMTs’ errors have not been assessed with HEART and interactions of error-producing conditions (EPCs) have not been considered in calculating the probability of AMTs’ errors. Method HHEA is proposed to reduce the subjectivity of experts’ judgments by calculating assessed proportion of affect of each EPC on human error probability (HEP) integrating HEART and the analytic network process (ANP) method. The proposed model has been applied in the maintenance of the elevator, which is one of the most important primary control surfaces for the Cessna 172 Series aircraft type. Results The HEP values of 3 subtasks are found to be higher than the average HEP value. These subtasks have the highest probability of human error due to time pressure, poor environmental conditions, and being a repetitive task. Conclusion This study could guide other aircraft maintenance organizations using this integration of human reliability assessment approach for critical maintenance practices to enhance flight safety and minimize human error.

The present research deals with aircraft maintenance technicians (AMTs) situated decision-making in a commercial aircraft maintenance department. The aim is twofold: first, to study how AMTs through their situated decisions experience inconsistencies between diverse organizational imperatives and pragmatic constraints and second, to identify persistent factors, dualities and/or trade-offs that affect these decisions. Towards this end, twenty-five cases where AMTs faced ambiguity or dilemmas and took decisions during maintenance work were analysed, after being observed in situ. The analysis followed a bottom-up approach where the decision cases observed were first examined in terms of the contextual factors that influenced their outcome. Such contextual factors did not only include the random events triggering a need for a decision, but also the pragmatic constraints that were taken into account by AMTs after the triggering event in order to choose an action path. An interpretative analysis of the above decision cases towards a more abstract level of description, the study achieved at identifying a set of persistent factors underlying decisions at the sharp edge of a safety critical system. It is argued that such persistent factors and their articulation can be identified in operators' decision-making in any particular work setting and can form the basis for sound bottom-up metrics for organizational resilience and proactive safety management.

Fatigue has long been identified as a human factor in aviation. Subsequently, a series of studies have highlighted fatigue-related elements within the context of the aviation industry, focusing on the flight deck – with some extension to flight students – and aviation maintenance activities. However, the latter has not been as deeply examined as its flight crew-centered counterpart. Similarly – if not more significantly – fatigue experienced by aircraft maintenance technician (AMT) students is scarcely explored, especially in comparison to the research conducted to understand fatigue in flight schools. AMT students are subject to comparable, but not the same, experiences as flight students. Academic-related stress, coupled with the need to accumulate a certain number of hours of instruction, certification and qualification exams, and the careful balance of jobs, academic requirements and expectations, and personal lives are all examples of fatigue-inducing situations faced by AMT students. In the conducted study, exactly these factors were explored, with the goal of better understanding the fatigue levels experienced by aircraft maintenance students, but also the contributing factors thereto and the consequences thereof. With this purpose, AMT students at a specialized school in the United States were surveyed with respect to their opinions on, and experiences with, fatigue. A total of 72 responses were analyzed, which indicated that fatigue and tiredness are factors of interest within the context of AMT educational programs. While the participants indicated overall healthy lifestyle patterns and adequate stress and work-life balancing mechanisms, commitments outside of the classroom, the schedule of classes, and course attendance requirements were identified to contribute to students’ fatigue levels. Consequently, reports of students falling asleep in class together with fatigue-induced errors/mistakes were identified among the responses. Nevertheless, the participants indicated to be aware of the safety issues created by fatigue and noted that their learning was not detrimentally impacted by their levels of fatigue. The results obtained form a basis for future research efforts, highlighting areas that are of specific interest for future studies with the goal of improving the educational experience for future aircraft maintenance technicians.

Maintenance is a highly procedural activity requiring motor and cognitive engagement. The aim of this experimental study was to examine how expertise affects maintenance tasks, in particular, the use of procedural documents. A total of 22 aircraft maintenance technicians were divided into two groups according to their level of expertise. Helicopter maintenance was evaluated in a real work environment, using an eye tracker, a fixed camera, and NASA-TLX to measure workload. Both groups reported a high mental load. Novices showed elevated levels of effort and mental demand. Experts were faster at all levels of the task and spent less time consulting maintenance documentation. The acquisition of procedural information was greater at the start of the task, where the gap between groups was more pronounced. This may be related to the overall planning of the task, in addition, the task was atomized, with frequent back-and-forth between execution and information intake, for all participants. Novices had a longer document consultation duration, spread over a greater number of consultations, but did not have a higher average consultation time. The results indicate a higher mental load for novices, potentially linked to an increased atomization of the task, as shown by the frequency of consultations.

This paper aims to analyze the readiness of the aircraft maintenance training industry to produce effective and efficient Aircraft Maintenance Technicians (AMTs) of the future air transport system. Currently, the AMT training industry is facing an unprecedented challenge to balance the skills of AMTs who can maintain older as well as new advanced aircraft. On the other hand, the maintenance industry is seeing a high attrition rate which leads to the shortage of workforce. At the same time, improper and ineffective training methods deliver unskilled workers to the industry. Having all these challenges in the first place, we can still proceed towards the challenging era of the sophisticated technological air transport system. This can be achieved by implementing a holistic approach to the AMT training industry. This paper also studies the problems of future AMTs training. By using the four-factor ‘see-saw’ model, it will outline and analyze the implementation to balance the skill gap of future maintenance technicians. This paper discusses the current standards of maintenance and future skill requirements and outlines the shift in the maintenance industry requirements from scheduled to predictive maintenance. It suggests the collaboration of all the stakeholders shall solve the problem by communicating and engaging in a common framework.

Maintenance tasks, especially in heavy maintenance, may not be completed in a single shift. Aircraft maintenance technicians often take work in progress by colleagues, and spend the incomplete work for a change of team. The need for accuracy and efficiency of information transfer in many cases, without having time to have a meeting to pass the service is a crucial aspect of maintenance work. The ideal shift change can occur normally before delivery and continues to proceed normally after delivery. Although a shift change create challenges for communication, they also offer opportunities to detect and correct errors, where the task of delivery is an opportunity to identify the problem and fix it. In this case, the task was done correctly the first round, however, a problem began when the second round took. One example is a case in which the first round have removed a defective part for replacement and let the component of aircraft at end of turn with problems. Instead of ordering and installation of an operational component, the second round was then reinstall the faulty component, not realizing he had information about the problem attached.

Ontology-based data access (OBDA) systems use ontologies to provide views over relational databases. Most of these systems work with ontologies implemented in description logic families of reduced expressiveness, what allows applying efficient query rewriting techniques for query answering. In this paper we describe a set of optimisations that are applicable with one of the most expressive families used in this context (ELHIO). Our resulting system exhibits a behaviour that is comparable to the one shown by systems that handle less expressive logics.

Significant human risk factors in aircraft maintenance technicians

Professional certification is required for aircraft maintenance technicians in order to undertake sophisticated maintenance tasks that need a wide set of skills and competencies. Due to the increasing demand for workforce preparedness for Industrial Revolution 4.0, numerous publications stress only a subset of aircraft maintenance skills criteria in their skills assessment curriculum. The purpose of this paper is to review previous research publications on skill and competency evaluation in the aircraft maintenance industry in order to develop a comprehensive set of skill and competency assessment criteria through a systematic review of the literature. It applies the PRISMA approach in selecting and evaluating the included articles. The papers were retrieved from five journal databases using a set of Boolean search terms related. The filtered fifteen articles are systematically reviewed for talent evaluation criteria applicable to the aircraft maintenance work scope in order to deal with the Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR4.0). Certain articles concentrate on a subset of assessment criteria for enhancing and tracking critical skills assessment criteria for the aircraft maintenance workforce, rather than on IR4.0 skill standards specifically. This paper summarizes seven skill criteria gathered in order to develop a comprehensive skill assessment framework for aircraft maintenance workforce.

The purpose of this study is to identify research trends by analyzing academic articles related to fatigue in the Korea aviation field.The research used the quantitative content analysis method.There are a total of 53 analyzed articles, from 1993 to 2024, collected according to the data collection procedure.The subjects of the study were pilots (25, 47.2%), cabin crew (15, 28.3%), air traffic controllers (5, 9.4%), flight dispatchers (2, 3.8%), and aircraft maintenance technicians (1, 1.9%).The analysis of the research issues are fatigue-related factors (29, 54.7%), fatigue management (14, 26.4%), fatigue measurement (6, 11.3%), the concept of fatigue (2, 3.8%), and policies and regulations of fatigue (2, 3.8%).Analysis of fatigue management and prevention policies includes flight work time adjustment and management (15, 20.5%), rest time improvement and adjustment (13, 17.8%), application of fatigue risk management system (11, 15.1%), personal health management (11, 15.1%), working hour adjustment (8, 10.9%), government and airline policy support (5, 6.8%), education (5, 6.8%), flight mission adjustment (2, 2.7%), strengthening of communication (2, 2.7%), and establishing a safety culture (1, 1.6%).The conclusion of the study is that future fatigue research in aviation will require interdisciplinary fatigue research from a variety of disciplines.

The Development of Computer Models for Ergonomic Accommodation

Jointly-Weakly-Sticky (JWS) Datalog is an expressive member of the family of Datalog programs. It is characterized by a marking procedure, the existential dependency graph, and joint acyclicity. Query-answering (QA) can be done in polynomial-time in data complexity through SChQA S , a chase-based, bottom-up QA algorithm for JWS Datalog programs. The QA algorithm can be optimized by using a magic-sets query rewriting technique, MagicD + , for JWS programs. MagicD + takes a Datalog program and a query, and rewrites the combination into a new Datalog program that becomes an input to SChQA S . With the new program, SChQA S avoids generating irrelevant facts. The main contributions of this thesis are the design and implementation of an ontology-based data access (OBDA) tool, JowsDatalog, in which SChQA S and MagicD + are implemented. i

In this paper, the author looks at certain areas of maintainability prediction process where missteps or misapplications most commonly occur. This research attempts to utilise the aircraft maintenance historical data and information (i.e. feedback information systems). Aircraft feedback information such as Service Difficulty Reporting System (SDRS) and Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) contains various types of information that could be used for future improvement rather than just the failure elements, as well as to help identify the critical and sensitive components that need more attention for further improvement. The study shows that the aircraft maintenance related feedback information systems analyses are very useful for deciding the maintainability effectiveness; these include planning, organizing maintenance and design improvement. There is no doubt that historical data information has the ability to contribute an important role in design activities. The results also show that maintainability is an importance measure that can be used as a guideline for managing efforts made for the improvement of aircraft components.

Digitised maintenance documentation will soon be the norm in aviation. Failure to correctly perform maintenance tasks may lead to aviation safety hazardous events. This article explores the views of aviation maintenance subject matter experts on errors affecting critical maintenance tasks and how views can inform transition to digitised documentation. This exploratory study offers a fresh view on human factors’ implications around critical maintenance tasks and their relation to digital documentation. A cross-sectional design method was utilised. Anonymous responses were collected with a mixed-methods questionnaire from convenience sample of participants from different aircraft maintenance and continuing airworthiness management organisations. Expert opinions of 25 aircraft maintenance and technical services engineers were recorded. All participants had personal experience with maintenance errors, where human factors attributed to these errors. They highlighted the lack of human factors’ awareness and the need to strengthen their contributory role in critical maintenance tasks. Participants’ views appeared divided in terms of challenges associated with digital documentation utilisation. Positive features emerged, such as critical maintenance tasks or duplicate/independent inspections’ highlighting, notes and warnings’ higher visibility, up-to-date documentation availability and better connectivity among activities. Negative themes concentrated on the tactile nature of paper and on the additional technology knowledge requirements.