Crew resource mamagement-Airmaxsystem.com

Crew resource mamagement-Airmaxsystem.com

CRM is the sharing of knowledge and best practices to reduce errors and incidents.

Used by high reliability organizations (HROs)

CRM has been used by commercial airlines since 1981

Overview

CRM is concerned with the cognitive and interpersonal skills needed to manage resources within an organized system, not so much with the technical knowledge and skills required to operate equipment.

In this context, cognitive skills are defined as the mentalprocesses used for gaining and maintaining situational awareness, for solving problems and for making decisions. Interpersonal skills are regarded as communications and a range of behavioral activities associated with teamwork.

In many operational systems as in other walks of life, skill areas often overlap with each other, and they also overlap with the required technical skills. Furthermore, they are not confined to multi-crew craft or equipment, but also relate to single operator equipment or craft as they invariably need to interface with other craft or equipment and various other support agencies in order to complete a mission successfully.

History

Initiated by NASA in 1979

NASA discovered crashes due to lack of:

Interpersonal communication

Poor decision making

Lack of leadership skills

Skills of CRM

Opening or attention getter- Address the individual. "Hey Chief," or "Captain Smith," or "Bob," or however the name or title that will get the person's attention.

State your concern- Express your analysis of the situation in a direct manner while owning your emotions about it. "I'm concerned that we may not have enough fuel to fly around this storm system," or "I'm worried that the roof might collapse."

State the problem as you see it- "We're showing only 40 minutes of fuel left," or "This building has a lightweight steel truss roof, and we may have fire extension into the roof structure."

State a solution- "Let's divert to another airport and refuel," or "I think we should pull some tiles and take a look with the thermal imaging camera before we commit crews inside."

Obtain agreement (or buy-in)- "Does that sound good to you, Captain?"

Modules of CrM

Basic Theory of Information processing

Human Error, Reliability and Error Management

Fatigue and Workload Management

Situational Awareness

Communication & Management

Automation

CRM for Single Pilots

Basic Theory of Information processing

Information Processing defined

Information processing is the process of receiving information through the senses analyzing and making it meaningfull.

Decision making is the choice between two or more alternatives.

Information Processing Model

Information processing can be represented as a model. This shows the main elements of the process from receipt of information from the senses, to outputs such as decision making and actions.

Human Error, Reliability and Error Management

Human error is inevitable. What is important is to ensure that human error does not result in adverse events such as air accidents.

This can be addressed in two ways: reducing errors in the first place, and controlling errors such that they, or their immediate effects, are detected early enough to allow remedial action. CRM addresses both types of mitigating strategies, but concentrates particularly on error detection, especially in the multi-crew situation.

Human reliability is the science which looks at the vulnerability of human beings to make errors (or less than perfect performance) under different circumstances. One could argue that it is more of an art than a science, since it is very difficult to predict, in quantifiable terms, human reliability in different situations, and from individual to individual. However, there are certain conditions under which humans are more likely to make errors (e.g. during circadian lows, when stressed, when overloaded, etc.).

Fatigue and Workload Management

This Module deals with readiness to cope in some sense, in terms of an individuals physical and mental ability to cope with work demands, and how he manages those work demands.

The ideal would be for flight crew to be at peak fitness and alertness all the time, and to be able to manage the workload such that work demands never exceed ability to cope. However, life isnt like that, and there are times when individuals are fatigued, or stressed, and workload sometimes exceeds ability to cope. CRM aims to help flight crew to plan their workload as far as they are able, making best use of the team, and taking into account the fact that some individuals may be performing below peak levels (e.g. due to fatigue, etc.).

It is also important for managers to be aware of such human performance issues when planning (rosters etc.).

Situational Awareness

Situation Awareness (SA) is acknowing what is going on around you essentially recognising the big picture. Its is fundamental to correct decision making and action.

Information processing tends to be the term used for the psychological mechanism of receiving and analyzing information; situation awareness is a description of an individuals or a team understanding of the aircraft state and environment, based on perceived and processed information.

SA is more than just perception it is understanding the meaning of what you perceive, how it might change in the future, and the implications.

Communication & Management

One of the basic underlying premises of CRM is that a team can, and should, perform better than two (or three) individuals in the cockpit. The aim of CRM is to ensure that 1+1>2, as opposed to 1+1