Psychometric Properties of the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory in a Portuguese Sample of Aircraft Maintenance Technicians

From its initial conceptualization as emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced personal efficacy for the help professions, burnout has received increasing attention in modern times, especially after the 2019 WHO’s inclusion of this syndrome in the ICD-11 list. Burnout can be measured using several psychometric instruments that range in dimensionality, number of items, copyrighted, and free use formats. Here, we report the psychometric properties of data gathered with the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory (OLBI) in a sample of Portuguese Aircraft maintenance technicians. As far as we know, this is the first study addressing the burnout syndrome in this occupational group. Data gathered with the OLBI displayed good evidence of validity related to internal structure, to other variables, with good evidence of reliability. We showed that burnout significantly correlated with mental and physical fatigue emphasizing the vital critical role that these variables play with safety in the aviation industry.

Creation of a knowledge management model based on CBR

This paper proposes a solution to facilitate maintenance activities associated with stand-alone solar photovoltaic installations in our developing countries. The autonomous photovoltaic solar installation is not connected to the electricity distribution grid. It meets the electricity needs on the one hand, of those who are too far away and who do not have access to the distribution grid. On the other hand, those who wish to overcome the constraints of connection to the electrical distribution grid. Our work focuses on the capitalization of knowledge in maintenance activity. The goal is to propose a model capable of helping maintenance technicians during their interventions by providing them with knowledge elements that will be drawn from a knowledge base. This knowledge base is built from the knowledge collected during previous maintenance activities in a given solar photovoltaic installation.

The “DOLPHINS” Project: A Low-Cost Real-Time Multivariate Process Control From Large Sensor Arrays Providing Sparse Binary Data

The “DOLPHINS” project started in 2018 under a collaboration between three partners: CNH Industrial Iveco (CHNi), RADA (an informatics company), and the Chemistry Department of the University of Turin. The project’s main aim was to establish a predictive maintenance method in real-time at a pilot plant (CNHi Iveco, Brescia, Italy). This project currently allows maintenance technicians to intervene on machinery preventively, avoiding breakdowns or stops in the production process. For this purpose, several predictive maintenance models were tested starting from databases on programmable logic controllers (PLCs) already available, thus taking advantage of Machine Learning techniques without investing additional resources in purchasing or installing new sensors. The instrumentation and PLCs related to the truck sides’ paneling phase were considered at the beginning of the project. The instrumentation under evaluation was equipped with sensors already connected to PLCs (only on/off switches, i.e., neither analog sensors nor continuous measurements are available, and the data are in sparse binary format) so that the data provided by PLCs were acquired in a binary way before being processed by multivariate data analysis (MDA) models. Several MDA approaches were tested (e.g., PCA, PLS-DA, SVM, XGBoost, and SIMCA) and validated in the plant (in terms of repeated double cross-validation strategies). The optimal approach currently used involves combining PCA and SIMCA models, whose performances are continuously monitored, and the various models are updated and tested weekly. Tuning the time range predictions enabled the shop floor and the maintenance operators to achieve sensitivity and specificity values higher than 90%, but the performance results are constantly improved since new data are collected daily. Furthermore, the information on where to carry out intervention is provided to the maintenance technicians between 30 min and 3 h before the breakdown.

Analyzing and Detecting Drifts in a Flowmeter by Discrete Fourier Transform

Large flowmeters are used in many industrial facilities, including power plants, cooling-water stations for refineries, and petrochemical plants. These flowmeters are employed for various purposes, including billing. Just like all machines, flowmeters are subject to failure. Drift is a particular type of failure in which the flowmeter produces an error in measurement that would incrementally increase with time. Maintenance technicians calibrate and fix all measuring equipment, including flowmeters. Nevertheless, downsizing policies and budget cuts in most contemporary industrial facilities have made these technicians overwhelmed with work. A mathematical and computer-based drift-detection scheme is developed to reduce the burden of the maintenance staff. The detection scheme only uses the flowmeter's flow data and the discrete Fourier transform (DFT). The detection scheme was applied over the flow data from an actual flowmeter that drifted during its operation. DFT application over the data produced by the flowmeter led to expected results and other unexpected results. This paper discusses both results and suggests areas for further study. Practically speaking, the scheme would facilitate the early detection of drifts in flowmeters having seasonal flow regardless of type or manufacturer.

The Efficacy of Earplugs at a Major Hazard Facility

Introduction:At a major hazard facility, sporadic cases of occupational noise-induced hearing loss have occurred despite the use of hearing protection devices. Preliminary testing with a system for measuring personal attenuation ratings (PAR) suggested that earplugs may not achieve the attenuation implied by their Australian Class designation in field-use conditions. We believe that ours to be a world-first study at the time it was conducted to check the relationship between Personal Attenuation Rating (PAR) and the Australian SLC80 classification for hearing protection devices, and the findings can be used to complement studies based on the American Noise Reduction Ratio (NRR).Methods:A cross-sectional study was performed with 65 volunteers. Participants were recruited from Operations and Maintenance Technicians at the major hazard facility. The participants had their PARs checked with different earplug types using the 3MTM E-A-RfitTM system. An earplug is deemed to have achieved a ‘pass’ if it achieved 22 dB attenuation for 80% of users (the definition for Australian Class 4 hearing protection)Results:None of the earplug types achieved the attenuation implied by their class rating when tested in field-use conditions. There were statistically significant differences in the frequency of achieving a ‘Pass’, and in PAR, depending on earplug type. Roll-down foam earplugs may provide superior attenuation compared to pre-moulded earplugs.Conclusion:Earplugs are unlikely to achieve the attenuation found in laboratory conditions during field-use. Personalised selection of hearing protection devices based on fit-testing results should be encouraged.

The Role of Smoke Detectors and Carbon Monoxide Detectors in the Fire Safety of Residential Buildings

Purpose: The aim of this publication is to present the most important aspects of using smoke and carbon monoxide detectors intended for households or similar residential facilities as well as to indicate the advantages and disadvantages of the adopted system solutions that affect the number of detectors installed in this kind of buildings. The article aims to present the issues related to the Integrated Qualifications System (ZSK), i.e. newly developed market qualification, dedicated to installers and maintenance technicians of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. Introduction: Smoke and carbon monoxide detectors for early detection of existing threats such as fires or escaping carbon monoxide are an important element of fire protection, dedicated primarily to owners of residential buildings. In many countries in the EU it is obligatory to install detectors in homes, whereas at the moment in Poland the only aspect regulated legally is the obligation of the manufacturer of these products to obtain a certificate. Since 2016, the ZSK has been operating in Poland, in which in 2019 the qualifications of installers/maintenance technicians of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors were distinguished. As a result, a person with a market qualification certificate is prepared for independent installation and maintenance of fire safety monitoring devices Methodology: As part of the research process, theoretical research was used, such as: analysis of literature and legal documents, synthesis, general- ization, inference, comparison and analogy. As part of the research, documents from such countries as Poland, Great Britain (mainly England), Germany and France were analysed. The selection of individual countries was guided by the level of development of these systems in a given country and the availability of source documents Conclusions: The presented analysis of the requirements for the installation of the smoke and carbon monoxide detectors shows how different the ap- proach is regarding the use of this type of devices. Depending on experiences and the administrative structure of a given country, a variety of regulations, whether legal or normative, can be discerned in the use of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors. ZSK is a well-described system of formal organization and classification of competences and offers the public services at the highest possible quality level. It is also a partial solution to the problem of installing detectors. However, it is necessary to regulate this issue from the legal level, as it was the case in other EU countries, where the installation of detectors in homes is obligatory. Such action will contribute to reducing the victims of fires or inhalation of toxic gases (carbon monoxide) Keywords: Integrated Qualifications System (ZSK), smoke alarm detector, electrical apparatus for the detection of carbon monoxide, carbon monoxide, residential buildings Type of article: review article

USE OF AUGMENTED REALITY FOR EFFICIENT BUILDING MAINTENANCE IN SRI LANKA

With the advent of technological advancements in the field of building maintenance, attempts have been taken to address the issues confronted by building maintenance technicians in the global context. Augmented Reality (AR) is one such concept which combines real environment with virtual content in 3D space that is experimented and proven to be effective in making the building maintenance activities more efficient by eliminating the causes for such difficulties faced by the technicians. In Sri Lanka, there is very limited use of such technologies in building maintenance practices and it is reasonable to mention that use of AR is minimum in this field. A gap is identified as there is no considerable literature exploring applications of Augmented Reality to ease building maintenance activities in Sri Lanka. Therefore, an effort is made to investigate into this area through a qualitative approach by taking a case into study and conducting interviews among technicians followed by an expert interview. The research highlights the use of AR in making the building maintenance practices in terms of data and instruction visualization leading to more efficient and effective outcomes while discussing on the benefits such as making maintenance tasks efficient, cost and time savings and high customer satisfaction as well as possible barriers for implementation of a similar program such as developing a Building Information Model to an existing building, inconvenience in making technicians adopted into a new system in the context of Sri Lanka

A Web–Based Decision Support System for Aircraft Dispatch and Maintenance

Aircraft dispatch involves determining the optimal dispatch option when an aircraft experiences an unexpected failure. Currently, maintenance technicians at the apron have limited access to support information and finding the right information in extensive maintenance manuals is a time-consuming task, often leading to technically induced delays. This paper introduces a novel web-based prototype decision support system to aid technicians during aircraft dispatch decisionmaking and subsequent maintenance execution. A system architecture for real-time dispatch decision support is established and implemented. The developed system is evaluated through a case study in an operational environment by licensed maintenance technicians. The system fully automates information retrieval from multiple data sources, performs alternative identification and evaluation for a given fault message, and provides the technician with on-site access to relevant information, including the related maintenance tasks. The case study indicates a potential time saving of up to 98% per dispatch decision. Moreover, it enables digitalization of the—currently mostly paperbased— dispatch decision process, thereby reducing logistics and paper waste. The prototype is the first to provide operational decision support in the aircraft maintenance domain and addresses the lack of correlation between theory and practice often found in decision support systems research by providing a representative case study. The developed custom parser for SGML-based documents enables efficient identification and extraction of relevant information, vastly contributing to the overall reduction of the decision time.

Scheduling Maintenance Technicians in a Railway Depot

This paper presents a mathematical programming model that optimizes the daily schedule of maintenance technicians in a railway depot. The aim of the model is the minimization of the associated labor costs, while assigning the different technicians and skills required for each maintenance task. A case study of a Portuguese train operating company is explored, including many technical constraints imposed by the company. A mixed-integer linear programming model is formulated and applied to the case study, while observing the rolling stock schedule and the maintenance tactical plan. The optimized solution shows that the maintenance team could be shortened, as some workers are not necessary to carry out all maintenance actions, suggesting the need for more flexible maintenance crew scheduling and associated labor conditions. The present model is integrated within a tactical maintenance planning model, which finds a feasible annual maintenance plan for the entire fleet, and an operational maintenance scheduling model, which assigns train units to service tasks and schedules the maintenance tasks within the rolling stock. Together, the three models provide a decision framework that can support maintenance planning and scheduling decisions. Finally, the present maintenance crew scheduling model adds a key aspect to the literature: the skills of maintenance technicians.

Study of maintenance of High Performance Sustainable Buildings (HPSB)

A study was performed by the Energy Branch of the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center, Construction Engineering Research Laboratory, on behalf of the US Army Installation Management Command under the Installation Technology Transition Program. The focus of the study was related to maintainability and operability issues associated with High Performance Sustainable Buildings (HPSBs). This study was conducted primarily based on information gleaned from telephone and web conference discussions with installation Directorate of Public Works personnel including Operation and Maintenance (O&M) Chiefs, energy managers, maintenance supervisors, and maintenance technicians. Experiences with HPSBs varied from installation to installation. For example, some installations had very positive experiences with photovoltaic (PV) arrays while other sites questioned their practicality due to maintainability problems. One site noted that PV technologies are changing so rapidly that procuring spare/repair parts becomes difficult or impossible when vendors discontinue supporting their older technologies or manufacturers go out of business. Based on discussions with the installation O&M personnel, a table of pro and con recommendations for 25 technologies, which are commonly implemented on HPSBs, was prepared and is included in this report.