Integrating Safety and Innovation in an Airline

Airlines are safety-critical complex human-machine systems with high priority for safety. At the sametime airlines face great demands on innovation, due to a changing business environment which requirethem to constantly increase productivity and capacity. The field of Human Factors are believed to bethe discipline that will manage to improve safety. It is argued here that the same discipline willimprove innovation in the system as well. The HILAS project (Human Integration in the Lifecycle ofAviation Systems) is a research and development initiative aiming at integrating Human Factorsknowledge in the life cycle of aviation.The purpose of this paper is to make recommendations on how an airline may integrate and balanceHuman Factors issues relevant to both innovation and safety. Research prior to this work has mainlybeen performed within a Flight Operations context and has included several field studies and workshops with airlines as well as interviews and questionnaires among operators. This work wascomplemented with a literature study on innovation as well as the concepts of motivation andempowerment. Common as well as contradicting Human Factors aspects contributing to innovation andsafety are analysed.Judging from examples from production systems and manufacturing industries it is indeed feasible tobalance control and closely monitored operational processes with internal empowerment. Examplesfrom HILAS show possible ways to integrate a model of lean-safe and that HILAS have potential tofacilitate development of high-involvement innovation and continuous improvement. HILASmaintenance research also show example of a successful implementation of a Lean-Sigma approachbuilding on knowledge that best solutions come from humans in the operations. Concludingrecommendations on how an airline may integrate and balance Human Factors issues relevant to bothinnovation and safety are given. For example airlines are recommended to; recognise that themanagement processes’ function is to support the real-time operations, recognise existing contextuallimitations for empowerment and yet the need for involving the operators, recognise that neithermanagement nor human in operations solve problems on their own in complex safety-critical systems,provide resources and appropriate tools and time to be involved.These results will be used in further research and development of the HILAS system.