Maintenance Performance Decision Aid

Because of modern design and manufacturing, aircraft are becoming even more reliable. However, it is not possible to re-design the human being: we have to accept the fact that the human being is intrinsically unreliable. We can work around that unreliability by providing good training, procedures, tools, duplicate inspections, etc. In this paper, we have taken the step to analyses all possible aircraft accidents and their causes and this information has been used to draft a MPDA (Maintenance Performance Decision Aid) which is intended to be used as a decision aid so that we minimize the effects of that very unreliability. Within the content of the MPDA lie 12 PIF (Performance Influencing Factors) upon which safety depends. According to survey, most instances, maintenance errors were performed during component installation. "Improper closing and securing of access panels" were cited as being amongst the most frequent maintenance errors conducted by the surveys explained above. One of the most "visible", and probably most expensive consequence of not correctly securing panels, are the number of fan cowl door losses reported after take-off. A step has been taken towards resolving or minimizing maintenance errors, task-related issues regarding this Fan Cowl Door Maintenance Task (FCDMT) which is the subject of the case study in this paper.