Best Practices in Shift Turnovers: Implications for Reducing Aviation Maintenance Turnover Errors as Revealed in ASRS Reports

Abstract

Effective shift turnover is critical to safety in many work environments, including medicine, the oil industry, and aviation maintenance. To gain insight into aviation maintenance turnover procedures and possible improvements to them, we examined NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) maintenance incident reports involving shift turnover communication problems. We used the Boeing Maintenance Error Decision Aid (MEDA) coding system to code 1,182 ASRS maintenance incident reports. We compared the incidents involving shift turnover-related communication problems (n = 46) with incidents involving non-turnover-related communication problems (n = 37) and with other maintenance incidents (n = 1,099). Turnover-related incidents involved a significantly higher proportion of equipment that was classified by ASRS as “critical” than either of the other 2 samples, and had a significantly higher proportion of severe consequences. We suggest improvements to turnover work practices and include a generic checklist for effective turnovers to aid in turnover development.