What are Human Factors (HF)?
Human factors in aviation are involved in the study of human’s capabilities, limitations, and behaviours, as well as the integration of that knowledge into the system that we design for them to enhance safety, performance, and general wellbeing of the operators of the system.
What Human factors is multidisciplinary in nature ?
- Psychology – how people process information and make decisions
- Physiology – An understanding of sensory processes
- Biology – The body’s circadian rhythms
- Statistics – Proper analysis and presentation of data
Why integrate HF into SMS?
The integration of HF into the SMS provides a managerial and organisational framework to ensure the systemic identification and analysis of relevant HF issues, and the application of appropriate tools, methods and measures to address such issues
What are the basic principles for integrating HF into an SMS
- Adopt a holistic and integrated approach;
- Put the people at the centre of the system;
- Account for human variability;
- Ensure transparency of organisational processes and actions;
- Take account of social and organisational influences;
- Involve staff and respect and value their input;
- Encourage timely, relevant and clear two-way communication; and,
- Ensure fairness of treatment (e.g., the ‘just culture’ concept)
What business benefits does integrating HF into the SMS have?
- Improves overall safety performance in the organisation and reduces the number of incidents;
- Ensures that human performance is optimally managed to improve safety capacity and efficiency;
- Helps to meet legal and regulatory obligations;
- Demonstrates all reasonable steps have been taken to manage safety and control risk from the perspective of human performance;
- Reduces direct costs by considering HF issues in the SMS and as part of any significant change management activity;
- Reduces indirect costs (such as staff turnover and stress-related leave);
- Improves staff motivation across the organisation; and,
- Improves staff acceptance of change
What are the Safety benefits for integrating HF into a organisation?
- Promoting a duty of care throughout the organisation;
- Increasing understanding and ownership of the safety processes;
- Encouraging continued safety improvement and the development of a ‘learning organisation’;
- Promoting the use of good communications and feedback throughout the organisation;
- Helping to disseminate appropriate lessons learned;
- Establishing, maintaining, and improving the safety culture of the organisation;
- Improving the integration of HF training processes within the training goals of the organisation;
- Clarifying HF training and assessment criteria expected of the organisation’s members with respect to safety and providing a documented process to ensure that standards are maintained;
- Providing HF input to improve effective data collection and analysis methods to support the safety process;
- Supporting the efficient allocation of resources to the safety process; and,
- Promoting and developing proactive and predictive management of risk.
