CRM (Cockpit-Crew Management System)

Ariarso Mahdi Hadinoto
Jul 23, 2024
7 min read

“Crew Resource Management is the effective use of available resources (e.g. crewmembers, aircraft systems, and supporting facilities), to achieve safe and efficient operations” (JAR-OPS and ICAO).

What is Crew Resource Management?

CRM is used by flight crew (and others in a safety-critical role within aviation) to enhance the safety of every flight. It promotes using non-technical skills, like teamwork and decision-making to ensure sound situational awareness and problem-solving and promotes threat and error management.

What are Non-Technical Skills (NOTECHS)?

Non-technical skills refer to skills that are not concerned with the physical operation of the aircraft, but rather the management of it. Generally speaking, Notechs are split into four subsections:

Decision Making
Leadership & Management
Crew Cooperation
Situational Awareness

CRM encompasses a wide range of knowledge, skills, and attitudes including, communication, situational awareness, problem-solving, decision-making, and teamwork. CRM concerns the cognitive and interpersonal skills to manage flight within an organized system. Cognitive skills are the mental process used for gaining and maintaining situational awareness for solving problems and for making/taking decisions.

When is CRM used?

CRM is used from the moment the crew enters the crew room all the way through to check out at the end of the day and constantly in between. From the pre-flight decisions in the crew room, through to taxiing to standing after landing, how the crew interacts with others and perceives their environment is critical to flight safety. Promoting this self-awareness and realizing that humans are susceptible to error are critical elements to CRM.

SHELL Concepts (by Frank. H.Hawkins)

The SHELL Model provides a conceptual framework to help us understand Human Factors. It illustrates the various constituents and the interface, or points of interaction, which comprise the subject. The study of Human Factors can be broken down into four conceptual categories:

•Software: Documentation, procedures, etc.

•Hardware: Machinery, equipment.

•Environment: Both internal and external to the workplace.

•Liveware: The human element.

Software

·Maps (difficult to read, color contrast, too much information, etc.)

·Flight manuals (graphs, charts, etc.)

·Let-down plates (open to interpretation)

·Checklist layout

Hardware

·Instruments (hard to read, poorly located, inaccurate)

·Control knobs (difficult to reach, distinguish, operate)

·Seats (adjustment,, harness nonstandard)

·Crashworthiness (40 G body, 9 G aircraft)

·Glass cockpit (people are not good monitors)

Liveware - Pilot

The clash between the trained pilot and their personality.

Environment

·Weather limits (marginal)

·Runways (wires, trees, birds, vehicles, etc.)

·Helipads (debris, wires, trees, etc.)

·Departure (noise-abatement procedures)

·ATC (intimidate, too fast, nonstandard R/T, etc.)

Liveware - Other People

·Passengers' expectations - a safe unexciting trip

·Customers, in commercial operations - maximum value

·Employers attitude (staff/management) - production

·Group influence - do as we do

·Instructor/student - complex relationship, role model

Interaction between human beings and the other elements of the SHELL model is at the heart of Human Factors!

ICAO Annex 6

In 1994, the ICAO Air Navigation Commission reviewed Annex 6 (Operation of Aircraft) and adopted a proposal to include a Standard in Annex 6 regarding initial and recurrent human performance training for flight crews, This Standard, promulgated through Amendment 21 to Annex 6, became applicable in November 1995.

CRM Generation

First-generation CRM seminars used psychology as a foundation, with a heavy focus on psychological testing and general management concepts such as leadership. In addition to classroom training, some programs also included full mission simulator training (Line-Oriented Flight Training, or LOFT) where crews could practice inter[1]personal skills without jeopardy. However, despite overall acceptance, many of these courses encountered resistance from pilots, who denounced them as "charm school" or attempts to manipulate their personalities.
Second-generation CRM "crew" resource management NASA held another workshop for the industry in 1986. By this time a growing number of airlines around the world had initiated CRM training, and many reported the successes and pitfalls of their programs. One of the conclusions drawn by working groups at the workshop was that explicit (or standalone) CRM training would ultimately disappear as a separate component of training and that it would become embedded in the fabric of flight training and flight operation. At the same time, a new generation of CRM courses was beginning to emerge. Accompanying a change in the emphasis of training to focus on cockpit group dynamics was a change in name from "Cockpit" to "Crew" Resource Management. The new courses dealt with more specific aviation concepts related to flight operations and became more modular as well as more team-oriented in nature. Basic training conducted in intensive seminars included concepts such as team-building, briefing strategies, situational awareness and stress management. Specific modules addressed decision-making strategies and breaking the chain of errors that can result in catastrophe. Many of the courses still relied on exercises unrelated to aviation to demonstrate concepts. Participant acceptance of these courses was generally greater than that of the first generation, but criticisms persisted that the training was heavily laced with psychology-based content. Second-generation courses still continue to be used in many parts of the world.
Third-generation crew resource management In the early 1990s, CRM training began to proceed down multiple paths. Training began to reflect characteristics of the aviation system in which crews must function, including the multiple input factors such as organizational culture that determine safety. At the same time, efforts were made to integrate CRM with technical training and to focus on specific skills and behaviors that pilots could use to function more effectively. Several airlines began to include modules addressing CRM issues in the use of flight deck automation. Programs also began to address the recognition and assessment of Human Factors issues. “Accompanying this was the initiation of advanced CRM training for check airmen and others responsible for training, reinforcement, and evaluation of both technical and Human Factors competencies” Assessment means understanding how well specific behaviors are enacted, not formal evaluation of Human Factors skills.
Fourth generation crew resource management In 1990, the Federal Aviation Administration introduced a major change in the training and qualification of flight crews with the initiation of its Advanced Qualification Programme (AQP), a voluntary programme that allows air carriers to develop innovative training that fits the needs of a specific organization. In exchange for this greater flexibility in training, carriers are required to provide both CRM and LOFT for all flight crews and to integrate CRM concepts into technical training. To complete the shift to AQP, carriers are required to complete detailed analyses of training requirements for each aircraft and to develop programs that address the CRM issues in each aspect of training. In addition, special training for those charged with certification of crews and formal evaluation of crews in full mission simulation is required (Line Operational Evaluation, or LOE).
Five Generations of the CRM Returning to the original concept of CRM, it is concluded that the overarching justification for CRM should be en-or management. While human error management was the original impetus for even the first generation of CRM, the realization and articulation of this was imperfect. Even when the training advocated specific behaviours, the reason for utilizing them was not always explicit. What should be advocated is a more sharply defamed justification that is accompanied by proactive organizational support. Fifth generation CRM aims to present errors as normal occurrences and to develop strategies for managing errors. Its basis should be formal instruction in the limitations of human performance. This includes communicating the nature of errors as well as empirical findings demonstrating the deleterious effects of stressors such as fatigue, work overload and emergencies. These topics, of course, require formal instruction, indicating that CRM should continue to have its own place in initial and recur[1]rent training. These can be dramatically illustrated with cultures, let us now turn to the fifth generation of CRM training that addresses the shortcomings of earlier training approaches The safety of operations is influenced by professional, organizational, and national cultures, and safety requires focusing each of these toward an organizational safety culture that deals with errors non-punitively and proactively. When CRM is viewed in the context of the aviation system, its contributions and limitations can be understood. What we do know is that the rationale for CRM training is as strong now as it was when the term was first coined. Fifth-generation CRM evolved from earlier generations. For example, special training in the use of automation, and the leadership role of captains, as highlighted in the third generation, can be neatly subsumed under this model. The error management approach should strengthen training by providing an all-important demonstration) of the reasons for stressing CRM in all aspects of flight training. In the same vein, the integration of CRM into technical training, and the proceduralization of CRM, also fit under this umbrella and are likely to be better understood and accepted when the goals are clearly defined and organizationally endorsed. Pilots should also be better able to develop effective strategies for error management in situations where procedures are lacking and to provide a focal point for CRM skills that are not amenable to proceduralization