Human factors survey of aviation maintenance technical manuals

Abstract

The reported work is part of a 3 phased effort to identify human factors issues in the development of aviation technical manuals, and make recommendations for the improvement of those documents. Phase 1 of this research effort surveyed the procedures used by five manufacturers to develop maintenance documentation. Several human factors issues were identified in the development process employed by these manufacturers. They included the reactive rather than proactive use of user evaluations, the limited use of user input and procedure validation, no systematic attempts to track error, and the lack of standards for measuring document quality. Given the issues identified in Phase 1, the objective of Phase 2 was to gather information about errors in technical documents, manual usage rates, and user perceptions of manual quality. Respondents were asked to identify the types of problems encountered with technical documents, the impact of those problems, and suggestions for improving manuals. We also sought to gather information about the differences between manuals developed by different companies. Considering the variability of methods used by manufacturers to develop technical documents, it may be possible to identify techniques and procedures that result in more effective documentation.