Research was conducted at a major airline to investigate factors related to
situation awareness in aviation maintenance teams, Situation awareness has
been found to be critical to performance and error prevention in many envi
ronments, Its role in the maintenance domain for the performance of both in
dividuals and teams is discussed. Situation awareness requirements for avia
tion maintenance were determined as well as the technologies and personnel
resources used to achieve situation awareness. Barriers and problems for si
tuation awareness both across and within teams involved in aviation mainten
ance were revealed. Based on this analysis, recommendations for the develop
ment of a training program to improve situation awareness in aircraft maint
enance at the individual and team level are presented.
Relevance to industry
The importance of situation awareness for preventing errors in maintenance
is discussed as well as factors that contribute to problems with situation
awareness across multiple teams. Specific recommendations for improving sit
uation awareness through organization and system design and through trainin
g are made that are applicable to a wide variety of industrial settings. (C
) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.