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One of the things in aviation maintenance
I think that's crucial is professionalism
and this is resisting that 'can-do' attitude.
I remember a case in 1996 with a Dash-8 maintenance activity
where the organisation concerned,
they fashioned up a cover plate around the nose gear area,
not waiting for the manufacturer.
In this case, there was some organisational pressures
to get that job done.
But in doing that, they unwittingly didn't realise
that the hexagonal bolts that they used,
obviously they didn't use the countersunk screws,
which meant that the nose gear was stuck in that up position.
So, again, this illustrates a good case study where, you know,
near enough is not good enough.
Professionalism is about sticking to the known standards,
known procedures, and of course the data as well.
Professionalism is something that I think, as individuals,
we need to maintain all the time.
And it's really thinking about whether or not
I'm in a state fit enough to be able to do my job adequately.
Often, as engineers, we tend to overlook these things
because we feel it's a requirement to perform our duties
even when we're not at our best condition.
It's been called a number of different names,
such as can-do-ism, I've heard the term 'missionitis'.
We tend to focus on the goals and not take fully into consideration
what it takes to get to those goals.
And even down to things like our personal condition,
our state of health, our level of fatigue, etc.
We may push ourselves to the point where we're actually not 100%
in the right condition to be able to complete a task.
EDKINS: So when you walk into an organisation,
you can generally see visible things
that indicate, you know, what sort of culture of professionalism
is being displayed.
So housekeeping, the way the work is organised,
you know, good, pro-active communication -
all that's visible stuff.
That has an added safety benefit, there's no doubt about that,
but it has a customer benefit as well.
Because if your customers see that,
you know, that implies to them that, you know, there's a bit of trust
in them giving you your business
and you're going to do that not only well
but you're also going to do it safely as well.
So in that 'Crossed Wires' scenario,
although there were some obvious problems within the organisation,
if you take a look at the individuals,
we can't divorce the fact that people don't operate in a vacuum.
They bring their life to work.
So, you know, the leader of that organisation
was not only disorganised at work, but was disorganised in his own life.
And, of course, the engineer concerned had some issues there
regarding his health and his fitness for duty.
So we can't divorce those factors from our work life.
And it's up to, one, the organisation
to set clearly what those standards are
for things like fitness for duty,
and for those in the organisation or coming to work
to speak up and to maintain some professionalism around that
and that might be adopting personal standards.
Maintenance engineers often ask, "Am I a professional?"
Well, professionalism or a professional isn't a title.
It's an attitude to the way you approach work
and everything you do, not just in work,
but also in your personal life as well.
So a professional knows their limitations.
A professional knows their performance.
And their attitude to work is they'll maximise their performance
but know when to ask for assistance.
They'll also try and understand other people's performance
and limitations as well and accommodate those.