Risk Management and Error Reduction in Aviation Maintenance

Although several U.S. and European airlines have started providing human factors training to their maintenance personnel, the academic community (some 300 academic programs in the United States and several others in Europe and Asia) has not yet started offering formal human factors education to maintenance students. The highly respected authors strongly believe in incorporating the human factors principles in aviation maintenance. This is the first of two volumes providing effective behavioural guidance on risk management in aviation maintenance for both the novice and the experienced maintenance personnel. Its practical guidelines assist both student and practising aviation maintenance personnel to develop sustainable safety culture. For the maintenance community it provides some theoretical discussion about the "Why?" for risk management and then focus on the 'How?' to implement a successful error reduction program. To help the maintenance community in making a strong case to their financial managers, the authors also discuss the return on investment for risk management programs. The issue of risk management is taken at two levels. First, it provides a basic awareness information to those who have little or no knowledge of maintenance human factors. Second, it provides a set of practical tools for the more experienced people so that they can be more effective in risk management and error recovery in their jobs. This invaluable book serves as a practical guide as well as an academic textbook. The book covers fundamental human factors principles from a risk management perspective. Upon reading this informative book, the audience will be able to apply the basic principles of risk management to aviation maintenance environment, and they will be able to use low-risk behaviours in their daily work.

Dr Manoj S. Patankar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Aviation Science at Saint Louis University. He is also the coordinator of the online master's degree program in Aviation Safety Management. Dr James C. Taylor is an Adjunct Professor in the College of Engineering at Santa Clara University.