Writing Aviation Maintenance Procedures That People Can/Will Follow

As safety-critical industries attempt to reduce error rates with the high reliance on procedural tasks, the error of “procedure not followed” becomes prominent. This paper focuses on aviation maintenance where the need is still urgent although much HF/E research exists to guide procedure designers. The occupation is tightly regulated, but this type of error is still the most prevalent in studies. In practice, new delivery technologies are emerging but that does not ensure that good HF/E practice is followed. The results of a 2012 FAA workshop are used to identify challenges and map future directions for error reduction.

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