Development and evaluation of the Maintenance Error Decision Aid (MEDA) process

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the development and implementatio n of an airline industry process for determining the factors that contribut e to maintenance errors and making corrective actions to eliminate or reduc e the probability of future, similar errors. A process like this is useful because maintenance errors have safety and economic consequences to the air line industry. The Maintenance Error Decision Aid (MEDA) process was develo ped based on the philosophy that maintenance technicians do not make errors on purpose, that errors result from a series of related contributing facto rs, and that these factors are largely under management control and, theref ore, can be changed. The process was field tested by employees of eight air lines and one repair station. Five surveys, two meetings, and completed MED A Results Forms were used to evaluate the process. Survey results indicated that: the MEDA process was easy to use, maintenance technicians did not fe el intimidated by the process, and management and staff felt MEDA was usefu l and should be continued after the field test. Feedback from the meetings was that MEDA had been successfully used to correct contributing factors to error, and airline management commitment was the most important factor for successful MEDA implementation. Suggestions for improving the implementati on process were also provided. The completed Results Forms were generally c orrectly filled out and indicated an average of 3.4 contributing factors pe r investigation. Seven of the nine organizations continued to use an error investigation process after the field lest. Since the end of the field test , the authors have provided MEDA implementation consultation to over 60 air plane maintenance organizations around the world. Feedback suggests that ap proximately two-thirds of the organizations are using MEDA. Relevance to industry The safety consequences and economic losses to the airline industry due to maintenance errors are very costly. A process for determining the factors t hat contribute to errors so that they can be corrected should help eliminat e future, similar errors. The philosophy that situational factors contribut e to error could also be applied in factory settings to investigate fabrica tion, assembly, and operational errors. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.