Macro CRM
A number of excellent posts here today. Thanks. Real pleasure reading them.
Having been involved in, and following, discussions like these for many years now, it is clear to me that on some points we have to break an industry deadlock in order to get safety yet another notch up. The low hanging fruit has already been properly picked.
Let’s take 2 important points. I hope you will not find them ‘philosophical’, as they are literally deadly serious. You will see them back in errors and incidents and accidents,even when their direct relationship to ‘visible’ events is not immediately clear (not only in operations but for example also in program management,engineering and manufacturing).
The first point concerns national and company cultures. French and US cultures are different (French culture differs from other European cultures too by the way). As a consequence of that, each will deliver products and solutions that have some inherent weaknesses. Sometimes you see this inside the industry – when you move work from one country to another for example they pop up sooner or later.Sometimes you see them in incidents and accidents.
n For example (mods - not judging, just illustrating – you can say similar things about other manufacturers) - Boeing has and will have some manufacturing issues for example that you will not quickly see in Airbusses.
n For example (mods – again, not judging, just illustrating) - Airbus has some design choices and issues for example that you will not quickly see in a Boeing. In some cases Boeing has followed the Airbus choices (delayed by X years) but made different design implementation decisions. In one case I am constantly checking if Boeing cultural manufacturing issues will come out of that by the way (hope it will be in incidents rather than accidents).
The second point is communication. I have an idea about what Airbus is going to say lateron (“when they have had time to study the report” – which is an interesting statement by itself). I also have an idea about the reactions that they will generate (rational,emotional, frustration, ...). And see some of these Airbus statements bouncing of a proverbial wall rather than being really absorbed and commented upon by some recipients. Clear and explicit examples of this bouncing can be found in the KNKT AirAsia Report which includes statements directly taken from AirAsia manuals. Statements that are counter to what Airbus has stated over many years by now. There are of course also Boeing examples. Citing one example - a famous US aerodynamics specialist called it the “NIH Syndrome”.
Both culture and communication together have been root causes of very serious issues that both Airbus and Boeing have had with major new programs over the last 15 years or so.These are not played out in accidents but in significant program delays and cost overruns. They have had and may have some issues later.
You might say that together both point to a requirement for CRM on an industry level and scale, Macro CRM.
Last edited by A0283; 3rd Dec 2015 at 13:37.