Project Acronym	AMPOS
Project Name	Aircraft Maintenance Procedure Optimisation System
Project Dates	1999 - 2001
Funding agency/programme	Esprit
Partners	Airbus Industrie FLS Aerospace (IRL) Ltd. NLR (Nationaal Lucht-en Ruimtervaartlaboratorium) Trinity College, Dublin
Partners Logos
Partners websites	Airbus Industrie FLS Aerospace (IRL) Ltd. NLR (Nationaal Lucht-en Ruimtervaartlaboratorium) Trinity College, Dublin
Project Website
Objective of the Project	To create for the first time ever a human factors continuous improvement feedback system from the aircraft maintenance organisation to the aircraft manufacturer.
Summary of the Project	AMPOS was to establish a process for the gathering, dissemination and use of human factors information to continuously improve the entire aircaft maintenance system and hence provide the basis for bridging the double standard of documentation and task performance. This was to be achieved by the creation of an AMPOS system that would work at three levels within the end-user organisation: an IT system, an Organisational system and a Human Factors methodology.
Details of the Project	AMPOS (Aircraft Maintenance and Procedure Optimisation System) was a European project funded under the 5th Framework Esprit programme. AMPOS developed, for the first time ever, a continuous improvement feedback loop for human factors information from an aircraft maintenance organisation to an aircraft manufacturer. In order to do this, AMPOS was developed at three levels – an IT system, an organisational system and a human factors methodology. A generic 5-stage human factors based methodology was developed and evaluated. The IT System as a core element of AMPOS was built to support the methodology. The IT System consists of three main components: the graphical user interface; the database and the Case Based Reasoning (CBR) tool that accommodates generation of human factor based cases and the processing of those cases. It supports a continuous improvement process by allowing for use being made of the data previously recorded in the database (amongst others with use of the CBR module). It was recognised right from the beginning of the project that the development and implementation of an IT-based system alone without considering the organisational implications would not result in a successful continuous improvement process. The IT components needed to be supported by a number of organisational processes. These included the creation of an accountable position of AMPOS manager. Supporting the AMPOS Manager was an AMPOS team of trained human factor experts who would take ownership of case processing.
Further Information
Tools available
Reports
Other output	Corrigan, S., Gaynor, D., N. McDonald (2002) Managing the Improvement Process 16th Human Factor Symposium, San Francisco, 2-4 April, 2002. Ward, M., Corrigan, S. & McDonald, N. (2002) The development and introduction of an aircraft maintenance continuous improvement system. Paper presented at and published in proceedings of E-2002.
Contact Detail	Dr. Nick McDonald Aerospace Psychology Research Group Trinity College Dublin 2 Ireland Tel: 00 353 1 608 1471 Fax: 00 353 1 671 2006