Re: Beancounter Battles
Chris Kriechbaum (kriechc_at_voyager.co.nz)
Fri, 9 May 1997 20:29:28 +1200 (NZST)
At 02:50 PM 8/05/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Neil C. Krey wrote:
>>
>> Good Afternoon, CRMers!
>>
>> Key, your suggestions are good ones. I had the opportunity to chase after
>> this same topic about three years back and came up with another one. Dr.
>> Bob Alkov, who was then with the U.S. Naval Safety Center, did a study on
>> incident rates for U.S. Navy helicopter operations before/after CRM
>> training . They showed a significant improvement. I have the paper in my
>> file and will dig it out. Also, I'll see if Bob will give me permission to
>> post it on our web site so everyone can access it.
>>
>> My recollection as I looked for statistics was that there was a lot of
>> anecdotal evidence of improvement, but relatively little in the relm of
>> hard data. At least from the U.S. perspective, there are now so few
>> accidents that we have trouble drawing much in the way of conclusions from
>> any of them. They all tend to be the result of interactions between many
>> factors, including human performance, so confirming changes due to a single
>> intervention could prove difficult.
>>
>> Anyone else have sources to add?
>>
>> Best regards,
>> Neil Krey
>> neilkrey_at_why.net
>> http://users.why.net/neilkrey/
>
>I don't have a source to add, but rather a comment. It is very easy to
>pinpoint an accident and say it was caused by Human Factors, after the
>impending investigation. It is my humble opinion that there are loads of
>CRM "Saves" out there that go unreported. Unfortunately, we don't hear
>about these "Saves" as much as we hear about the errors. For
>justification of CRM training, just add up the costs of only 1 accident,
>in terms of loss of life, lost revenue, insurance, marketing reputation,
>training, airframe, etc. Perhaps someone can compute a dollar figure of
>what a hypothetical "accident" would cost these days. It seems clearly
>obvious to all of us on the web that CRM training (or CLR, for the United
>folks) is a sound investment. The trick is to convince the beancounters
>of the same thing. Anybody have the book answer? I'm waiting with open
>ears!
>
>Regards,
>Tony Sasso
>Northwest Airlines
>
CRMers,
Accidents versus incidents, major costs versus high costs. We have just
completed an examination of CRM related incidents which have resulted in
either a delay and a cost, or just a direct cost to the airline.
Depending on which cost model you consider, the direct cost to our small
airline has been established to be between NZ$100,000 to $250,000 per month.
Multiply that by 12, and its a big bottom line figure.
We are about to start Cabin Crew and Dispatcher training at the end of this
year and hopefully move into maintenance by 1998, so it would be interesting
to complete the same study after all that training is complete.
Rather than just accidents as Tony and Neil mention I was also interested in
incidents or events that can cause direct cost to be incured.
There are obvious direct benefits that can be accrued from effective
training, its just the challange now to quantify them.
Chris Kriechbaum
Air New Zealand