A study of the different relations between disruptive events and human factors and their effects on maintenance performance

Abstract

Understanding the factors that affect the quality of maintenance tasks is critical to ensure an effective maintenance program. In this paper, we present a comprehensive framework to evaluate de impact of human and environmental/managerial factors on inspection quality, specifically regarding the probability of defect induction by this kind of activity that usually has solely informative purposes. We discuss the influence of Disruptive External Events (DEEs) on the probability of human error. A DEE can disrupt appropriate conditions for performing inspection tasks, making maintenance staff more subject to errors that can result in defect induction. We present a delay-time based mathematical model for an inspection-maintenance policy applied to a non-repairable single-component technical system, incorporating to the model a probability of defect induction at inspections that may vary according to parameters related to DEEs and human reliability. We investigate how likely a defect induction can be depending on the capacity of the team to recover proper conditions to more reliable inspections. An important finding concerning the induction of defects calls attention to the need to invest in more appropriate conditions to carry out interventions on the system. The results obtained highlight the importance of a deeper investigation integrating technical aspects of the systems with relevant subjects from areas related to human behavior and social sciences.