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| The main focus of the work of APRG has been with the
aviation system, but it has a strong interest in other transport modes (road,
rail) and safety-critical industries. The main strands of its research activity
are: |
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| Organisational safety systems |
| This research aims to develop better theoretical models
of understanding the precursors to human error and organisational failure
which have been implicated in major accidents. The analysis of organisational
safety systems in the aviation maintenance industry has shown how the organisation’s
processes (planning, quality, response to incidents, etc) are related to
measures of the organisations safety culture. Technicians have a strong
professional sub-culture, one role of which is to compensate for organisational
deficiencies. |
| Cross-national comparisons of organisations have demonstrated
significant differences between the systems and cultures of organisations
in different European countries, but some surprising commonalties in the
professional sub-culture (the ADAMS project). This work now involves the
psychometric refinement of measures of safety climate and safety attitudes,
using a large database of results from 12 organisations in six European
Countries. This research is also being developed in the Irish food and retail
industries, and health industry, in collaboration with the Department of
Environmental Sciences in the Dublin Institute of Technology. |
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| Human factors training development
and evaluation |
| A human factors training programme for airport ground
operations staff (including also trainers, supervisors and managers) was
developed, implemented and evaluated in seven aviation organisations in
four countries (the SCARF project). Following this, a longitudinal study
of change in attitudes and climate associated with a three-year training
intervention in one organisation has been accomplished. This has demonstrated
a differential impact of training on organisational safety climate and a
relationship between this training intervention and changes in the accident
rate. |
| A further international training implementation and evaluation
project is now underway in the aircraft maintenance environment (STAMINA).
A future project (AITRAM) will integrate human factors and technical training
in a Virtual Reality training tool. It is planned to develop this work to
elaborate a model of human factor competence and look at the role of human
factors training in organisational change. |
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| Technology, innovation and organisational
change |
| A further research strand concerns systems of innovation
in organisations. This has developed a psychological model of innovation
processes based on a survey of entrepreneurial firms and led to the development
of innovation training with the support of the EU Leonardo da Vinci Programme.
The study of technology and organisational change in safety systems is the
subject of a current ESPRIT project involving a major European aircraft
manufacturer and maintenance organisation (AMPOS). This action research
project will establish an IT-based feedback system to improve the human-centred
design of operational procedures and documentation. The impact of this on
the safety system, culture and subculture of the relevant organisations
will be measured. A new project has started with Eurocontrol (the European
air traffic control organisation) to study the role of trust in technology
in the context of technical and organisational change. |
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