Situation awareness in aircraft maintenance teams

Research was conducted at a major airline to investigate factors related to situation awareness in aviation maintenance teams. Situation awareness has been found to be critical to performance and error prevention in many environments. Its role in the maintenance domain for the performance of both individuals and teams is discussed. Situation awareness requirements for aviation maintenance were determined as well as the technologies and personnel resources used to achieve situation awareness. Barriers and problems for situation awareness both across and within teams involved in aviation maintenance were revealed. Based on this analysis, recommendations for the development of a training program to improve situation awareness in aircraft maintenance at the individual and team level are presented. Relevance to industry The importance of situation awareness for preventing errors in maintenance is discussed as well as factors that contribute to problems with situation awareness across multiple teams. Specific recommendations for improving situation awareness through organization and system design and through training are made that are applicable to a wide variety of industrial settings.