Human Factors in Aerospace Quality

Most nonconformities that reach a customer were made by a trained, capable person who was trying to do the job well. AS9100D clause 10.2.1 requires organizations to consider human factors when they investigate why, and clause 7.1.4 makes the physical, psychological and social work environment something the organization must manage. This course teaches what that means on a shop floor, in an inspection booth and in a corrective action meeting.

You learn the difference between errors and violations, between slips, lapses and mistakes, and between the active failure at the bench and the latent conditions that waited for it. You take the Dirty Dozen one condition at a time, with a countermeasure for each that you can use the same day. You learn how task cards, checklists, independent and duplicate inspection, handover, interruption management and workspace design make work tolerant of error, and how to choose a corrective action from the top of the hierarchy of controls rather than the bottom. The final module shows how to investigate by asking why it made sense at the time, how just culture and blame-free reporting work, and how a human factors cause statement reads.

The course draws on the Dirty Dozen, the SHELL and PEAR models and Reason's Swiss cheese model, with FAA Advisory Circular 120-72A and EASA Part-145 human factors training as context. It is written for technicians, inspectors, supervisors, engineers, procedures writers and quality staff in aerospace, defense and medical device manufacturing, and for anyone who writes or reviews corrective actions.

The course closes with a 10-question examination drawn from a bank of 20. On passing you receive a PlanetISO Certificate of Completion with lifetime access to the course content. The certificate does not expire.