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Integration of human factors into the design process of helicopter maintainability
Author(s) -
Bernard Fabien,
Zare Mohsen,
Sagot JeanClaude,
Paquin Raphael
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
human factors and ergonomics in manufacturing and service industries
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.408
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1520-6564
pISSN - 1090-8471
DOI - 10.1002/hfm.20792
Subject(s) - maintainability , process (computing) , aviation , systems engineering , field (mathematics) , engineering , aircraft maintenance , manufacturing engineering , risk analysis (engineering) , engineering management , aeronautics , process management , computer science , reliability engineering , business , mathematics , pure mathematics , aerospace engineering , operating system
The integration of human factors and ergonomics (HFE) in maintenance activities may improve the working conditions of maintenance operators by reducing errors and accidents. Maintainability takes into account HFE in the aeronautics industry to anticipate the design of the aircrafts, following the CPA regulation FAR/CS‐25.1309, for large transport category. For the helicopter field, there are no official recommendations but the rotorcraft industry tries to integrate HFE into its design phases of maintainability to increase flight safety. Without a standard framework, the aviation industries (plane and helicopter) develop their own way of working and requirements. Furthermore, previous studies highlight the lack of compromise between the design and HFE criteria in maintainability. The purpose of this paper is, therefore, to investigate how HFE is integrated within all steps of the design process in the maintainability department of helicopter manufacturers in France. The ergonomic skills and knowledge of stakeholders were studied and the associated tools to evaluate the HFE criteria were surveyed. We observed that maintainability stakeholders underutilize powerful simulation tools, which are sufficient for and efficient at performing HFE analysis. Additionally, it was reported that understanding of HFE information weakened over the course of the milestones of the design project progressed. Our conclusion details the need to provide a simple methodology or rather a relevant tool that helps maintainability stakeholders to integrate HFE in a homogenous way along all the design project milestones.