Human Factors Integration: Importance And Elements In Essay.

Defining Human Factors Integration

Question :

What is the Human Factors With Exaples ?

Human Factors Integration is one of the prominent aspects of any operating industry. According to  the According to the Health and Safety Executive Board of UK, “Human factors refer to environmental, organizational and job factors, and human and individual characteristics, which influence behavior at work in a way which can affect health and safety". It takes into view all the human factors, which are in accordance with the techniques and services that various industries provide. In fact, HFI (Human Factors Integration) is a plan with a definite purpose those are adopted in order to enhance the services and improve its application.

 In the words of H.L. Mencken, “For every complex problem there is a solution that is simple, neat and wrong”. Therefore, the humanistic involvement takes into account all the problems that arise and create measures to mitigate it and engage the dynamics of culture along with technology.  There are many aspects of human factor integration like safety issues, work permits, healthy hazard assessment and the engineering. All these necessary factors control the implications of the human factors. According to the US MANPRINT, and the key legislations by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) a number of features and agendas are present. After the federal and higher authorities of civil aviation made it mandatory, these were included in the regulation.  The decisions to induct the key elements and the plans for the procurement are essential parts of the human integration system.

 Over the years, a number of integration and elements must be improvised which will make to be considered while dealing with the facilities and assumptions of the particular industry. The inputs in the development plan and processes must meet the Automation, Line Operations and Fatigue Risk Management concerns. In regards to the aviation industry, there are a number of critical analyses involved in it but the demographics must help in improving the statistics of aviation and human factors.

The varied human factors have always remained the subject of experiment and that with technological advancement and expansion of human resources a wider perspective of human factors has generated. In fact, rising global competition, changes in demographic trends and greater risk in application of technology have been forcing an integration of all the wide-ranging human factors. The integration of human factors is a more recent concern in the aviation industry and in this context, it should be mentioned that the third human factor seminar of EUROCONTROL in October 1998, focused chiefly on the integration ways and elements of these factors.

The procedure of integration commences with the designing part of airports and flights, which have to be user-centered. This approach of design represents that particular philosophy of system designing which triggers most other approaches of HFI. The central approach to achieve a user-centered design is to transform every part of aviation industry intended to be used by humans corresponding to the characteristics of the human consumers.

However, the integration of human factors needs to be enforced in the organization or industry otherwise there are chances that this would be treated as an unnecessary extra.  A person, who is in the topmost level of the organization, must authorize this enforcement. HFI requires proper plan developing, determining responsibilities and roles along with conducting an analysis on Early Human Factors to understand the necessities and differences better. The key elements of HFI consists of several programmes; it includes management, responsibilities, chalking out plans, description of target audience, concentrating on technical processes, guidance, methods and tools  (Barfield and Dingus 2013).

Importance of Human Factors Integration in the Operating Industry

The several aspects of human factors and issues regarding automation especially on flight deck have been a matter of concern for a long time in the aviation industry. With the panacea to overcome human errors, the ATM industry attempted to replace manual operations with technology but to counter the automation trend another design approach called ‘human-centered automation’ emerged. This approach formed a foundation of what the design of human factors should aim to achieve.

If identified, there are six prominent elements, which need to be considered in the process of HFI; work force, personnel, training programme, Task and Interface design, safety of the system along with evaluation of the health hazards are all the major aspects that are concentrated on. In the first place, workforce refers to the personnel strength, which should exactly be appropriate for the smooth functioning and management of the industry as well as support and train the system (Valavanis and Vachtsevanos 2014). Next comes the roles and accountability of the personnel; their aptitudes, human characteristics and experience should be judged well to integrate them well in the process of the system. Another significant aspect is of the training of the personnel to specify and evaluate the optimum blend of education and instructional systems. On-the-job training is integral to the assimilation of the human factors since it develops the required knowledge, competency and efficiency for the available personnel to maintain and operate with effectiveness under the complete range of in service condition. On the other hand, it is very important to integrate all the human characteristics in the TID to execute perfection and lessen errors. The expertise of human factors can also be very useful in minimizing safety risks identifying whether the system is running in a normal or an anomalous way. Another key stage to integrate human factors is to identify and assess some of the health hazardous conditions of the workplace in the aviation industry. These include radiation, toxic fumes, vibration, shock or recoil, which can cause severe health damage and even death. Thus, the human factors are obligatory to be well integrated into the system giving attention to these specific stages mentioned in the literature with great importance.

The identification of human error has led to the changing strategies of the human awareness system. A number of procedural operations compose of the interaction between the human entity and the services they enjoy. One needs to undertake the various aspects like the regularity of occurrence, strategies and reasons in order to include the visions of human error and derive conclusions. According to Deker, the important analysis of human error entails the elements of defense, violations, and incorrect assumptions (Daramola 2016).The incorporation in the industrial appliance for example flights, cockpits, necessary regulations and most importantly the probable safety and security issues, which is an obligation while boarding an aircraft.  The term "human factors" has grown increasingly accepted, as the commercial aviation industry has realized that human error, rather than mechanical failure, underlies most aviation accidents and incidents.  The maintenance of resource management (CRM) and crew resource management (MRM) must necessarily be an essential part of the application procedures. However, it is much broader in both its acquaintance base and capacity. Human factors engage in congregation of information concerning human abilities, and other characteristics of limitations and applying for effective human use. The recurrent systems, device, machines responsibilities, jobs, and environments must be coordinated to produce safe and comfortable submission of the execution and understanding. In aviation, human dynamics is accustomed for better comprehension on how humans can most safely and efficiently be integrated with the technology. The composition of the client and human preference must be addressed into design, preparation, policies, or procedures to help humans perform better.

Different Elements Involved in Human Factors Integration

 One of the significant advantages of human factor integration is the initiatives involved with the safety management issues. There is a healthy correlation between the human involvement, the organization and the subsequent technicalities involved in the whole system. The Human errors are partial reason or cause for the the number of several mishaps and discrepancies that occur in different areas. Therefore, a number of derivatives that have been composed of the production and tool of delivering the best are very essential. In fact, regardless of the number of mishaps and accidents, there are many chances of the following industry.  It has been initiated that all the equipments and apparatus like the legal requirements, issues regarding the ultimate discourses. The enhancement of the resilience has been given importance with the inherent practices that the “safety should not be incorporated as an absence of something, it is about the presence of something which is important for the scenario”. The perspective and opinion of the major resilient force, in the words of Sidney Dekker have been mentioned.  

 In case of certain situations there are disruptions and causalities in the accounts of developing the best engineering that should be compatible to the ultimate scenario. The call for the emergency and sustenance is important for the various considerations. The accountability action should be compatible with learning. The post negligence conducts of the actions and current scenario of the aviation industry. The standard of good practice in human performance determines the just culture of the scenario that must be necessitated with the involvement and safety conscience (Valavanis and Vachtsevanos 2014).

The main concern of human factors addresses the issues of the task or the characteristics of the activity. The judgment of the human error evidently depends on the positive and the negative features of the particular task. In the case of aviation industry, the attributes and the surrounding environmental engagements matter which affects the final result of the integration system involving human and ergonomic factors all of which are inclined by the wider societal concern, both local and national. There are two types of human factor integration. The examples of good and bad types are as follows:

The tools of integrating human factors those are available at the disposal of lay practitioners and specialists are as extensive as the wide discipline of aviation engineering. There have been several ways recommended to perform the said integration; however, the best example of Human Factors Integration is that which stops adding expense to the industry and is cost effective. When integration of human factors is based on practical knowledge and experience, it is very likely to turn out as commercial benefitting the industry (Grosse et al. 2015).

Another example of good HFI integration is which increases the efficiency of the system by focusing precisely on human safety in operation. It is very important to ensure the safety factor in operating the system engineering. In addition, it is important to make certain that the technological equipments run hassle free and the best possible service is provided.

Approaches in Human Factors Integration

In the aviation industry, there are various aspects of human integration or design. Starting from manufacturing to the services on board, everywhere the human integration is the most important part of the process. The human integration has both the good and bad determining factors. The examples of bad human integration can be broadly classified as the human errors. The errors caused by humans are the reasons behind almost 70% of the commercial hull-loss accidents. Not only in flight operations, but the errors are major concerns in the maintenance and air traffic management also. The aviation industry applies the skills of human resources in all types of profile to achieve the perfect integration of safety and comfort during the travel.

The system of life cycle of the commercial aircraft production consists of the following phases. Those are Manufacturing, testing, operation and maintenance (Daramola 2016). There design principles are: the compatibility of the systems with capabilities and limitations of the human resources; the power of the system to recover from any human error by blocking, detecting and minimizing the human errors; and utilization of human capabilities in the unpredicted and non-routine situations in the system. The life cycles of an aircraft and the design principles are all interconnected, and it hugely depends on the human integration. It is often termed as Crew Resource Management (CRM). The areas of CRM are: flight deck design; maintenance and support; management of errors and designing passenger cabin (SATOW 2017). The bad human integration examples may include: error in designing, not considering the safety issues, not catering to the passenger comfort, not giving proper support to the customers when needed, not providing help during any emergency, negligence in service, bad services and behavior towards the passengers on board. Any of these can lead to disasters in the aviation industry.

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