On the Design of Flight-Deck Procedures - Intelligent Systems ...

operations and the philosophy of the airline are truly shared by management and line pilots, and how linepilots perceive their company's concept of operations.Procedure design meetings. We also wanted a view-port into the process itself. That is, howflight management actually designs or modifies procedures. We attended meetings in which proceduralchanges were addressed.Jumpseat observations. Mindful of the last P of our “Four-P” model (practices), we wanted toobserve how procedures are actually used in daily line operations. We also wished to informally discussprocedural concepts with line crews in their operational habitat: the cockpit. Appendix 5 contains theinformal questionnaire used during line observations. This proved to be a very useful methodology.Flight crews discussed and pointed to procedural problems as they occurred. We flew a total of morethen 200 legs and some 400 hours with the three cooperating airlines.4.2.2 Meeting at One Airframe ManufacturerThe airframe manufacturer is the first to design procedures for a new aircraft. After the manufacturercompletes the certification process (FAR Part 25), the customer operating under Federal AviationRegulation Part 121, is responsible for certifying the procedures for the type of operation that thecustomer conducts. It is no secret that airline and manufacturer procedures do not resemble each other --their perspectives are very different. When we asked airline flight managers why they did not simplyaccept the procedures from the airframe manufacturer, their answer was always the same: “they designand build airplanes, we fly passengers.”This provides some friction between airline procedure designers and the manufacturers' representatives,who would prefer that their customers stay with the original procedures provided with the airplanes. Anexception to the above, however, are some abnormal and emergency procedures. In this case mostcarriers adopt the manufacturer's procedures, with the exception of callouts and allocation of tasksamong crew members.We surveyed one airframe manufacturer in order to understand its concepts for designing procedures.We presented our framework and conducted discussions with a group of managers and engineersresponsible for procedure design. Our main objectives were (1) to understand how the manufacturerspecifies procedures for a new aircraft, (2) to understand their view of the reasons why carriers take themanufacturer's procedure and modify it.4.2.3 Accident and Incident DatabasesIn order to gain insight into the influence of procedures in the “real world” of line operations, weconducted searches of two databases: (1) the incident database of NASA's Aviation Safety ReportingSystem (ASRS), and (2) the accident database of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).The chapters that follow are based on our work with the three U.S. airlines that participated in the study.We have tracked the flow of procedure development from the airframe manufacturer, its subsequenttailoring to fit the individual airline's operation, its use by the line pilot, and the never-ending process ofmodification. We will discuss the factors that affect procedure development, issues in procedure design,and provide guidelines for the designer.16