LivewareHardware is the study of how people interface with machines, seating in appliances,

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The SHEL model (Hawkins 1975)
Human Factors in Airfield RFFS
Purpose Create an environment where fire crews
can deal with an incident in as safe and speedy a
manner as possible
Collect data Pareto results
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The process is applied
Human factors SHEL model
What are Human Factors?
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• The process is aligned to significant events
  during phases at an aircraft incident, a
  Pareto score was given on the basis of relative
  complexity of task
• .

• Across all crews
• Different times of day
• Different response areas

• Human factors are concerned with optimizing the
  relationship between people and their activities,
  by the systematic application of human science.
  In fire crews this involves concentrating on
  specific occasions within an incident where
  stress levels may rise and judgement may be
  compromised

H

• S Software, symbols etc
• H Hardware, appliances, etc.
• E Environment
• L Liveware, humans
• Management of the station

Level of stress noted
Respond to incident
L
S
E
During rescue
Receive message
Mount appliance
Post incident
M
L
Confirmation of human factors issues found during
analysis
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M
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Objective

Limited information intake

• Fundamental Objectives
• To examine the station environment to seeif it
  could be optimized to assist the initialresponse
  turnout sequence
• To look at pinch points within an incident to
  seeif these could be minimised by adopting
  humanfactors principles
• To re-visit all of the training packages
  employedby the fire crews to better reflect
  actual incidentconditions
• To raise the level of awareness in humanfactors
  so the fire crews can better understandthe
  reasons for occasional poor decision making and
  better understand how this can beminimised by
  application of human factorsprinciples.

• Research shows under incident conditions
  individuals can demonstrate a reduced capacity
  for taking in information
• Fire fighters focus on a task or problem and lose
  the overall picture
• In many cases when we most need a comprehensive
  grasp of the situation our ability to take in the
  required data eludes us

• Liveware-Hardware is the study of how people
  interface with machines, seating in appliances,
• pumping systems, controls, Fire service
  equipment etc
• Humans may never be aware of a L-H deficiency
  even where it leads to a disaster because of
  thehumans natural ability to adapt and mask
  problems

H
L
S
Premature hypothesis formation

• Liveware-Software encompasses humans and the none
  physical aspects of the systemsuch as
  procedures, layouts, symbology, problems can
  include misinterpretation andnone-compliance
  with procedures

L

• Another feature of stress during an incident is
  the tendency toform premature solutions to
  problems
• Our decision making is likely to be flawed and
  our proposedsolution inadequate
• During incidents officers need to step back and
  check how plansare functioning, under stress
  this ability is often difficult

E

• Liveware-Environmental issues involve high work
  levels, shift work, sleep deprivation,
  economicalrestraints
• Although a lot of these factors are outside the
  personal control boundaries they should be
  correctly addressed by those in management with
  the power to do so

L
L

• Liveware-Liveware is the interface
  between people, competency has always been
  individually assessed and it was
  assumed the team containing individuals would be
  competent, this is clearly not always
  the case, many incidents fail as a result of poor
  team working / interfacing

Regression
L

• Stress during the incident phase tends to make us
  fall back on tried and tested solutions, in other
  words we regress to what has worked in the past
• Quite often differences between past and present
  problems make proposed solutions inappropriate

The key stress points of an incident
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• The initiation of the initial alert sequence
• Donning fire kit under pressure
• Donning breathing apparatus
• Assisting distressed passengers
• Entry and ventilation of the aircraft
• Injured or trapped passenger rescue
• Post incident trauma

Prioritisation

• During the early stages of an incident it is
  vital to correctly prioritise tasks, resources
  etc. unfortunately accurate prioritisation is one
  of the casualties of stress
• We may prioritise tasks which look most urgent
  but may not be or we settle on the easier tasks
  solving the problems we can instead of the ones
  which are most urgent, this is a classic feature
  of stressed behaviour

Confirmation of analysis led me to definitive
stress points within an incident