enero 17, 2014

Air safety: When statistics are used to kill the messenger

Long time ago, I observed that big and long-range planes -with a few exceptions- always had a safety record better than the one more little planes had. Many explanations were given to this fact: Biggest planes get the most experienced crews, big planes are more carefully crafted… it was easier than that: The most dangerous phases in flight are on ground or near to the ground. Once the plane is at cruise level, the risk is far lower. Of course, biggest planes make long flights or, in other terms, every 10 flown hours a big plane could perform, as an average, one landing while a little one could land 10 times. In a statistical report based in flown hours…which one is them is going to appear as safer? Of course, the big one. If statistics are not carefully read, someone would started to be worried about the high accidentability rate of little planes, if compared with the big ones.

Now, the American NTSB has discovered that helicopters are dangerous: http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/ntsb-adds-helicopters-ga-weather-to-quotmost-wantedquot-394947/ and the explanation could be similar, especially if they address the HEMS activity: Emergency medical services are given an extremely short answering time. That means flying with machines that can be cold at the moment of performing an exigent take-off, for instance, very near to a hospital or populated places where they need to make an almost vertical take-off. Once they are airborne, they need to prepare a landing near to an accident place. The place can have buildings, unmarked electrical wires and, of course, it can be from fully flat at sea level to a high mountain place. Is the helicopter risky or the risk is in the operation?

Of course, precisely because the operation is risky, everything has to be as careful as possible but making statistical comparisons with other operations is not the right approach. Analyze in which phase of the flight accidents happen; if the pilot does not have full freedom to choose the place to land, at least, choose an adequate place for the base. Some accidents happened while doctor onboard was seeing that they were very near to an electrical wire and assumed that the pilot had seen it…all the eyes are welcome, even the non-specialized ones. Other times, non-specialized people asked and pressed for landing in crazy places or rostering and missions are prepared ignoring experience and fatigue issues. That is, there is a lot of work to do in this field but, please, do not use statistical reports to justify that by comparing things that are really hard to compare.

enero 7, 2014

Un camello es un caballo diseñado por un comité

Lo confieso: Siempre que se habla de «trabajo en equipo» me echo mano a la cartera porque, demasiado a menudo, en lugar de tratar de sacar lo mejor de todos los miembros se trata de cómo lograr la «aprobación por aclamación», como ocurría en España en las cortes de Franco y en buena medida también ahora.

Un ejemplo sencillo ya comentado en este blog: El caso Nokia. Cualquier observador interesado, sin acceso a información privilegiada ni a costosos gabinetes encargados de producir laboriosos estudios con gran aparato estadístico, vio que la alianza con Microsoft, sin dejarse siquiera una puerta abierta a Android como hicieron otras marcas, era un error garrafal…cualquiera menos, naturalmente, los directivos de Nokia que tomaron la decisión. ¿Eran tontos o incompetentes? La verdad es que no lo creo; sin embargo, es muy probable que la dinámica de toma de decisiones de su organización haya hecho que se comportasen como si lo fueran.

No es el único caso de error fácilmente reconocible en el momento en que se produce -después es mucho más fácil y todos lo reconocemos- y debería ser una invitación a revisar los mecanismos de decisión de muchas organizaciones: La discrepancia está mal vista y, ante esto, muchos directivos «prudentes» prefieren acomodarse en su butaca de cubierta en el Titanic antes de correr el riesgo de perderla si exponen con claridad su desacuerdo.

Si la conducta esperable en un Comité de Dirección es la de un rebaño, y esta conducta se reproduce en los niveles inferiores de la organización, mejor que no llamemos a eso trabajo en equipo y menos aún que cantemos sus excelencias. Algo se está haciendo muy mal. El «Nos encontrábamos al borde del abismo pero hemos dado un paso al frente con decisión» parece la norma en muchas organizaciones…reflexión, poca y, si es grupal, ninguna pero eso sí, mucha decisión…aunque sea para vernos todos al fondo del abismo.

enero 4, 2014

¿Puede un líder ganar su reconocimiento no ejerciendo como tal?

Una pregunta previa: ¿Has visto el final del Concierto de Año Nuevo con la Marcha Radetzky?

Sin duda, este año ha ocurrido algo totalmente anómalo: Mientras sonaba la música, excepto un momento al final, el director, Daniel Barenboim, se dedicó a saludar a todos los músicos de la orquesta: http://youtu.be/P9A0cWAm70Q . La marcha, como siempre, sonó extraordinariamente pero el director estaba otra cosa.

No es el primero que hace algo parecido pero sí el que lo hace durante más tiempo. Hace unos años, Carlos Kleiber, quien tiene con la Filarmónica de Berlín una de las mejores versiones grabadas que pueden encontrarse de la Séptima de Beethoven, tuvo momentos en que, simplemente, se apoyaba en la barra y quedaba, como un espectador más, disfrutando de la música.

Para poner ambas actuaciones, la de Kleiber y sobre todo la de Barenboim, en contexto hay que entender cómo funciona la Filarmónica de Viena: Entre su ya largo anecdotario, figura la ocasión en que se fue la luz y la orquesta siguió tocando para, a continuación, preguntarse los músicos si el director habría seguido dirigiendo. Para los músicos de esta excepcional orquesta, un buen director es visto como un «colega» y no como alguien que se sitúe en un plano superior.

Barenboim, al no dirigir la marcha Radetzky y mostrarlo de forma ostentosa, quiso dar un reconocimiento público a la orquesta en una actuación y en un momento de ésta de especial significado. Sin duda, esa prueba de confianza le habrá ganado, si no la tenía ya antes, la categoría de «colega» y el deseo por parte de los miembros de la orquesta de brillar al máximo cada vez que Barenboim se coloque frente a ellos. Que, además, Barenboim sea capaz de decir que el mejor Concierto de Año nuevo «ha sido y será» uno que fue dirigido por Karajan no le sitúa en un plano inferior. Todo lo contrario. Una lección que sería interesante que aprendieran muchos dirigentes políticos y empresariales.

diciembre 30, 2013

Aeropuerto de Barajas: ¿A qué imb…esto, experimentado gestor, se le ocurrió esta idea?

La verdad…ya toca bastante las narices que, cuando buena parte de los billetes son tasas aeroportuarias, además haya que pagar por los carros de equipaje. Lamentablemente, éste es un tipo de robo que se encuentra extendido por los aeropuertos de todo el mundo.

Sin embargo, en Barajas han inventado algo nuevo: Usted puede llegar de fuera de su país -algo común en los aeropuertos- e incluso de fuera de la zona euro -también bastante común- para encontrarse con que, para conseguir un carro de equipaje, tiene que comprar una ficha con una moneda de un euro.

Veamos: Puesto que las monedas metálicas no tienen valor de cambio, puede esperarse que el viajero que llega lleve consigo tarjetas de crédito y billetes de euros pero, salvo que haya salido de viaje tres días antes, NO va a llevar monedas de euro. Éste fue nuestro caso, viniendo cargados de equipaje hasta las cejas y, tras dos meses fuera de España, viendo cómo nos las arreglábamos para conseguir una moneda de un euro.

Cierto que, al contrario que en Estados Unidos, en Europa no existen billetes de euro pero nada impide tener la posibilidad de recoger billetes o tarjetas de crédito y, en el primer caso, devolver monedas pero ¿pedir monedas, recién llegado y cuando ni siquiera se ha pasado por las oficinas de cambio? ¿Nadie ha caído en ese insignificante detalle? ¿A qué IMBÉCIL se le ocurrió la idea?

diciembre 16, 2013

Does CRM work? Some questions about it

Let’s start by clarifying something: CRM is not the same that Human Factors concern. This is a very specific way to channelize this concern in a very specific context, that is, the cockpit…even though, CRM philosophy has been applied to Maintenance through MRM and other fields where a real teamwork is required.

Should we have to improve CRM training or is it not the right way? Do we have to improve indicators quality or should we be more worried about the environment in which these indicators appear?…

An anecdote: A psychologist, working in a kind of jail for teenagers had observed something around the years: The center had a sequence known as «the process», whose resemblance to Kafka work seemed to be more than accidental, and inmates were evaluated according to visible behavior markers included in «the process». Once all the markers in the list appeared, the inmate was set free. The psychologist observed that smarted inmates, not best ones, were the ones able to pass the process because in a very short time were able to exhibit the desired behavior. Of course, once out of the center, they behave as they liked and, if they were caught again, they would exhibit again the required behavior to go out.

Some CRM approaches are very near to this model. The evaluator looks for behavioral markers whose optimum values are kindly offered by evaluated people and, once passed the evaluation, they can behave in agreement with their real drive, whatever it is coincident with the CRM model or not.

Many behaviorist psychologists say that the key is which behavioral markers are selected. They can even argue that this model works in clinical psychology. They are right but, perhaps, they are not fully right and, furthermore, they are wrong in the most relevant part:

We cannot try to use the model from clinical psychology because there is a fundamental flaw: In clinical psychology, the patient goes by himself asking for a solution because his own behavior is felt like a problem. If, through the treatment, the psychologist is able to suppress the undesired behavior, the patient himself will be in charge of making this situation remain. The patient wants to change.

If, instead of speaking about clinical psychology, we focus in undesired behaviors from teamwork perspective, things do not work that way: Unwanted behaviors for the organization or the team could be highly appreciated by the one who exhibits them. Hence, they can dissappear while they are observed but, if so, it does not mean learning but, perhaps, craftiness from the observed person.

For a real change, three variables have to change at the same time: Competence, Coordination and Commitment. Training is useful if the problem to be solved is about competence. It does not work if the organization does not make a serious effort to avoid contradictory messages and, of course, it is useless if there is not commitment by individuals, that is, if the intention to change is not clear or, simply, it does not exist.

Very often, instead of a real change, solutions appear under the shape of shortcuts. These shortcuts try to subvert the fact that the three variables are required and, furthermore, they are required at the same time. Instead of this, it is easier to look for the symptom, that is, the behavioral marker.

Once a visible marker is available, the problem is redefined: It is not about attitude anymore; it is about improving the marker. Of course, this is not new and everyone knows that the symptomatic solution does not work. Tavistock consultants use to speak about «snake oil» as an example of useless fluid offered by someone who knows it does not work to any other who knows the same. However, even knowing it, they can buy the snake oil because it satisfies the own interest…for instance, not being accused of inaction about the problem.

The symptomatic solution goes on even in front of full evidence against it. At the end of the day, who sells it makes a profit and who buys it save the face. The next step should be alleging that the solution does not perform at the expected level and, hence, we should improve it.

Once there, some crossed interests make hard changing things for anyone who has something to lose. It is risky telling that «The Emperor is naked».Instead of that, there is a high probability that people will start to praise the new Emperor gown.

Summarizing, training is useful to change if there is in advance a desire to change. Behavioral markers are useful if they can be observed under conditions where the observed person does not know to be observed. Does CRM meet these conditions? There is an alternative: Showing in a clear and undisputed way that the suggested behavior gets better results than the exhibited by the person to be trained. Again…does CRM meet this condition?

Certainly, we could find behavioral markers that, for deep psychology lovers, are predictive. However, this is a very dangerous road that some people followed in selection processes. This could easily become a kind of witch-hunting. As an anecdote, a recruiter was very proud about his magical question to know a candidate: His magic question was asking for the name of the second wife of Fernando the Catholic. For him, this question could provide him a lot of keys about the normal behavior of the candidate. Surprisingly, these keys dissappeared if the candidate happened to know the right answer.

If behavioral markers have a questionnable value and looking for other behaviors with a remote relation with the required ones, it should be required looking in different places if we want a real CRM instead of pressure to agreement -misunderstood teamwork- or theatrical exercises aimed to provide the desired behavior to the observer.

There is a lot of work to do but, perhaps, in different ways that the ones already stepped:

Recruiting investment: Recruiting cannot be driven only by technical ability since it can be acquired by someone with basic competences. Southwest Airlines is said to have rejected as a pilot a candidate because he addressed in a rude way to a receptionist. Is it a mistake?
Clear messages from Management: Teamwork does not appear with messages like «We’ll have to get along» but having shared goals and respect among tem members avoiding watertight compartments. Are we prizing the «cow-boy», the «hero» or the professional with the guts to make a hard decision using all the capabilities of the team under his command?
CRM Evaluation from practicioners: Anyone can have a bad day but, if on continuous bases, someone is poorly evaluated by those in the same team, something is wrong, whatever could say the observer in the training process. If someone can think that this is against CRM, think twice:Forget for a moment CRM: Do pilots behave in the same way in a simulator exercise under observation and in a real plane?
Building a teamwork environment: If someone feels that his behavior is problematic, there is a giant step to change. If, by the other side, he sees himself as «the boss» and he is delighted to have met himself, there is not way for a real change.

No shortcuts.CRM is a key for air safety improvement but it requires much more than behavioral markers and exercises where observers and observed people seem to be more concerned about looking polite than about solving problems using the full potential of a team.

diciembre 12, 2013

Artificial Intelligence (GOFAI): Story of an old mistake

Is there something surprising in this picture? Anyone familiar with robot arms can be surprised by the almost human looking of this hand, quite uncommon in robots used in manufacturing and surgery. A robot hand does not try to imitate the external shape of a human hand. It usually has two or three mobile pieces working as fingers. However, we have in the picture a copy of a human hand. Now, the second surprise: The picture is taken from a design in the M.I.T museum and whose author is Marvin Minsky.

Anything wrong with that? Minsky reigned for years in the I.A. activity in M.I.T. and one of his principles, as told by one of his successors, Rodney Brooks, was this: When we try to advance at building Intelligent Machines, we are not interested at all about human brain. This is the product of an evolution that, probably, left non-functional remains. Therefore, it is better starting from scratch instead of studying how a human brain works. This is not a literal sentence but an interpretation that can be made, from their own writings, about how Minsky and his team could think about Artificial Intelligence.

We cannot deny that, thinking this way, they have a point and, at the same time, an important confusion: Certainly, human brain can have some parts as a by-product from evolution and these parts could not add anything to its right performance. Moreover, these parts could have a negative contribution. However, this is not to be applied only to brain. Human eye has some features that could make an engineer designing a camera with the eye as guide to be immediatly fired. Even though, we do not complain about how the eye works, even if we compare with almost all Animal Kingdom but the comparison should be tricky: Human brain «fills» many of the deficiencies of the eye as, for instance, the blind spot and gives human sight features that are not related with the eye as, for instance, a very advanced ability to detect movements. That ability is related with specialized neurons much more than with the lens (the eye). The paradox: Human hand comes from the same evolutive process that the brain or eye and, hence, it is surprising for someone, who made a basic principle of dismissing human features, to design a hand that imitates a human one far beyond functional requirements.

Confusion in this old I.A. group is between shape and function. They are right: We can have evolutive remains but there is a fact: Neurons, far slower than electronic technology, are able to get results hard to reach for advanced technology in fields as shape recognition or others, apparently as trivial as catching a ball that comes flying. Usually, sportpeople are not seen as a paradigm of cerebral activity but the fact is that movements required to catch a ball, not to say in a highly precise way, are out of reach for advanced technology. Principle based in «evolutive remains» is clear but, if results coming from this pretended defective organ are, in some fields, much better than the ones that we can reach through technology…is it not worth trying to know how it works?

Waiting to have more storing room and more speed is a kind of «Waiting for Godot» or an excuse, since present technology is able to provide products much more faster than the humble neurons and storing capacity has very high limits and it is still growing. Do they need more speed to arrive before someone that is already much slower? Hard to explain.

The same M.I.T. museum where the hand is has a recording where a researcher, working with robot learning, surprises because of her humility: At the end of the recording when she speaks about her work with a robot, she confesses that they are missing something beyond speed or storing capacity. Certainly, something is missing: They could be in the same situation that the drunk looking for a key under a light, not because he has lost there but because that is the only place with light enough to look for something.

I.A. researchers did not stop to think in depth in the nature of intelligence or learning. However, they tried to produce them in their technological creations getting quite poor results, as well in their starting releases as in the ones with features like parallel processing, neuron networks or interaction among learning agents. Nothing remotely similar to an intelligent behavior nor a learning deserving that name.

Is that an impossible attempt? Human essentialists would say so. Rodney Brooks, one of the successors of Minsky sustains the opposite position based in a fact: Human essentialists always said: «There is a red line here impossible to trespass» and technological progress once and again forced them to put the supposed limit further. Brook was right but…this fact does not show at all that a limit, wherever it could be, does not exists as Brooks tries to conclude…that should be a jump hard to justify, especially after series of experiments that never got to show an intelligent behavior and some scientific knowledge in the past had to be changed by a new one. When scientists where convinced about the fat that Earth was flat, navigation already existed but techniques had to change radically after the real shape of Earth was common knowledge. Brooks could be in a similar situation: Perhaps technological progress does not have a known limit but it does not mean that his particular line in this technological progress has a future. It could be one of many cul-de-sac where science has come once and again.

As a personal opinion, I do not discard the feasibility of intelligence machines. However, I discard that they can be built if there is not a clear idea about the real nature of intelligence and what the learning mechanisms are. The not-very-scientific attitudes that the I.A. group showed against «dissidents» drove to dismiss people like Terry Winograd, once his findings made him uncomfortable or others, like Jeff Hawkins, were rejected from the beginning due to his interest about how the human brain works.These and other people like Kurzweil and others could start a much more productive way to study Artificial Intelligence than the old one.

The I.A. past exhibits too much arrogance and, as it happens in many academic institutions, a working style based in loyalties to specific persons and to a model that, simply, does not work. The hand of the picture shows something more: Contradictions with the own thinking. I do not know if an intelligent machine will be real but, probably, it will not come from a factory working with the principle of dismissing anything that they ignore.Finding the right way requires being more modest and being able to doubt about the starting paradigms.

diciembre 6, 2013

When Profits and Safety are in different places: An historic approach to Aviation

All of us heard that Aviation is the safest Transportation way. That is basically true but, if 94% of accidents happen while on ground or near to ground, we should think that some flight phases have a risk level to be studied.

It’s true that some activities bring an intrinsic risk and Safety means balancing acceptable risk level .vs. efficiency. Aviation is in that common situation but it has its own problems: The lack of an external assessment made the safety-related decisions to be inside a little group of manufacturers, regulators and operators. Consumers listen the mantra “Aviation is the safest Transportation way” but they cannot know if some decisions could drive Aviation to leave that privileged position.

A little summary of technology evolution in the big manufacturers could show how and why some decisions were made and how, in the best possible scenario, these decisions meant losing an opportunity to improve safety level. In the worst one, they should mean a net decrease in safety level:

Once jets appeared, safety increased as a consequence of higher engines reliability. At the same time, navigation improvements like ground-based stations (VOR-DME), inertial systems and, later, GPS appeared too.

However, at the same time that these and other improvements appeared, like making zero visibility landings possible, some other changes whose contribution could be considered as negative appeared too.

One of the best known cases is the engines number, especially in long haul flights. Decades ago, the standard practice for transoceanic flights was using four engine planes. The only exceptions were DC-10 and Lockheed Tristar with three engines. However, in places like U.S.A., long flights where, if required, planes could land before their planned destination, were performed by big planes with only two engines.

Boeing, one of the main manufacturers, would use this fact to say that engines reliability could allow transoceanic flights with twin planes. Of course, maintaining two engines is cheaper than maintaining four and, then, operators should have a strong incentive to embrace the Boeing position but…can we say that crossing an Ocean with two engines is as safe as doing it with four engines, keeping the remaining parameters constant?

Intuition says that it’s not true but messages trying to oppose this simple fact started to appear. Among them, we can hear that a twin modern plane is safer than a four-engine old plane. Nobody said that, if so, the parameter setting safety level should be how old the plane was. Then, the right option should be…a modern plane with four engines.

Airbus, the other big manufacturer, complained because at that moment did not have its own twin planes to perform transoceanic flights but, some time after, they would accept this option starting their own twin planes for these long haul flights. This path –complain followed by acceptance and imitation- has been repeated regarding different issues: One of the manufacturers proposes an efficiency improvement, “its” regulator accepts the change asking for some improvements and the other manufacturer keeps complaining until the moment they have a plane that can compete in that scenario.

In the specific case about twin engines, regulators imposed a rule asking the operators to keep a certain distance from airports that could be in their way. That made twin planes design longer routes and, of course, that meant time and fuel expenses. However, since statistical information showed that engines reliability is very high, the time span allowed to fly with only one engine working while loaded with passengers was increasing until the present situation. Now, we have planes that are certified to fly with only one engine working until arriving to the nearest airport…assuming that it could be 5 hours and a half far. Is that safe?

We don’t really know how safe it is. Of course, it is efficient because that means that a twin engine certified in that way can fly virtually through any imaginable route. Statistics say that it’s safe but the big bulk of data about reliability does not come from laboratories but from flying planes and that’s where statistics could fail: Engines reliability makes that big amount of data come from flights where both engines have been working in uneventful flights. We can add that twin planes have more remaining power than four-engine planes due to the exigence that, if an engine fails after a moment during take-off, the plane has to be able to take-off with only one engine. Of course, the four-engine plane has to be able to perform this action with three engines, not with one.

In other words, during cruise time, the engines of a twin plane work in a low effort situation that, of course, can have a favorable impact in reliability. The question that statistical reports could not address because of lack of the right sample should be: Once one engine failed, the remaining one starts to work in a much more exigent situation. Does it keep the same reliability level that it had while both engines were working? Is that reliability enough to guarantee the flight under these conditions for more than 5 hours? Actually, the lack of a definitive answer to this question made the regulators to ask for a condition instead: The remaining engine should not get out of normal parameters while providing all the required power to keep the plane airborne.

At least, we could have some doubts about it but, since the decision was made among “insiders” without any kind of external check, nobody questioned it and, nowadays, the most common practice at boarding a transoceanic flight, is doing it in a twin plane. We will attend to the masks and lifejackets show but it’s unlikely that some could say:

“By the way, the engines in this plane are so reliable that, in the very unlikely event that one of them fails, we can fly with full safety with the remaining one until reaching the nearest airport, no more than 5 hours and a half far”.

How many users are informed about this little detail with they board a plane with the intention of crossing an Ocean? This is only and example because it’s not the only field where improvement followed by complains and acceptance was the common behavior.

Engines number is an issue especially visible –for obvious reasons- but a similar case can be observed in matters like codkpit crewmembers decrease or automation. Right now, there is not a single passengers plane from any of the big manufacturers bringing flight engineer. In this case, Airbus was the innovator in its A310 model and, like in the engines issue, we could ask if removing the flight engineer has made Aviation more or less safe.

Boeing was the one complaining in this case but…it happened to be designing its models 757 and 767 that, in the final configuration, would be launched without a flight engineer.

Is a flight engineer important for safety? Our starting point should be a very easy one: The job of a pilot does not know the concept of “average workload”. It goes from urgencies and stress to boredom and viceversa. In a noneventful flight overflying an Ocean and without traffic problems, there are not many things to do. The plane can fly without a flight engineer and even without pilots. They remain in their place “just-in-case”, that is, in a situation quite similar –with some differences- to the one we can find in a firemen place. However, when things become complex, there is a natural división of tasks: One of the pilots flies the plane while the other one takes care of navigation and communications and, if there is a serious technical problem, they have to try to fix it…it seems that someone is missing.

This absence was very clear in 1998 in Swissair-111, where a cabin smoke situation should make a MD-11, without a flight engineer, crash. In a few moments, they passed from an uneventful flight prepared to cross Atlantic Ocean to a burning hell where they had to land in an unknown airport, to find the place and runways orientation, radio frequencies…while keeping the plane controlled, throwing fuel and trying to know the origin of the fire to extinguish it.

The accident research, performed by “insiders” did not address this issue. Two people cockpit was already considered as a given, even though another almost identical plane –DC10- with flight engineer could have invited them to make the comparison. Of course, nobody can say that having a flight engineer should have saved the plane but the workload that pilots confronted should have been far lower.

This issue was not addressed neither when a plane from Air Transatt landed at Azores islands with both engines stopped. That happened because they were losing fuel and a wrong fuel management made the pilots transfer fuel to the tank that was losing it. Should it have happened if someone had been devoted to analyze carefully fuel flow and how the whole process was working? Perhaps not but this scenario was simply ignored.

Flight engineers dissappeared because automation appeared and that started a new problem: Pilots started to lose skills for manual flying and it drove to a situation named “automation paradox”:

Automation gets an easier user interface but this is a mirage: A cockpit with less controls and cleaner from a visual scope does not mean that the plane is simpler. Actually, it’s a much more complex plane. For instance, every Boeing 747 generation has been decreasing the number of controls in the cockpit. Even though, newer planes are more complex and that’s how the automation paradox works:

Training is centered in interface design instead of internal design. That’s why we find planes more and more complex and users who know less and less about them. A single comparison can be made with Windows systems, almost universal in personal IT. Of course, it allows much more things than the old DOS but…DOS never got blocked. Unlike DOS, Windows is much more powerful but, if blocked, the user does not have available options.

The question should be if we can admit a Windows-like system in an environment where risk is an intrinsic part of the activity. The system allows more things and can be properly managed without being an expert but, if it fails, there are not options for the average user.

“Fly-by-wire” system was introduced by Airbus in commercial Aviation, with the Concorde exception, and it confronted complains from Boeing. We have to say that Boeing had a high experience in fly-by-wire systems because of its military aircrafts. Again, we find a situation where efficiency is bigger even though some pilots complain about facts like losing kinestesic feeling. In a traditional plane, a hand on the controls can be enough to know how the plane is flying and if there is a problem with speed, center of gravity and others. In fly-by-wire planes, by default, this feeling does not exist (Boeing kept it in its planes but, to do so, they had to “craft” the feeling since the controls by themselves don’t not provide it).

This absence could partially explain some major accidents, labeled “Human Error” or “Lack of Training” without anybody analyzing what features of the design could drive to an error like, for instance, a defective sensor triggering an automatic response without the pilots knowing what’s going on.

What is the situation right now? If we check the last planes from the big manufacturers, we can get some clues: Boeing 787 .vs. Airbus A350. Both are big twin and long-haul planes, there is not a flight engineer, they are highly automated and they both have fly-by-wire system. Coincidence? Not at all. Through a dynamic of unquestionned changes agreed by insiders and without knowledge by the consumers, the winner will be always the most efficient solution. Then, both manufacturers finished with two models that share a good part of the philosophy. There are differences –electric .vs. hydraulic controls, feeling .vs. no-feeling from the controls, more or less use of composite materials, lithium .vs. traditional batteries…- but the main parameters are the same.

Issues that were discussed time ago are seen as already decided. The decision always favored the most efficient option, not the safest one. Could that be changed? Of course, but it’s not possible if everything keeps working as an “insiders game” instead of giving clear and transparent information outside.

We should understand too the position of «insiders»: A case like GermanWings was enough for some people -like NYT- to question the plane before knowing what really happened. A few days ago, we had an accident with a big military plane manufactured by Airbus and some people started already to question the safety of a single manufacturer…perhaps someone near to the other one?

Information has to flow freely but, at the same time, many people make a living from scandal and it’s hard to find the right point: Truth and nothing but the truth and, at the same time, deactivate the ones who want to find or manufacture a scandal. Nowadays, the environment is very closed and in that environment efficiency will have always the upper hand…even in cases where it shouldn’t. By the other side, we have to be careful enough to address real problems instead of invented ones. The examples used here can be illustrated not only with the referenced cases but with some others whose mention has been avoided.

noviembre 11, 2013

Del parado como del cerdo todo se aprovecha…por parte de algunos

Sé que la afirmación es cruel pero después de ver, entre otras cosas, cómo los partidos políticos y sindicatos roban fondos destinados a la formación de los desempleados o meten en EREs realizados por empresas en crisis a esbirros suyos que jamás habían trabajado ahí…¿qué otra cosa puede decirse?

Pues bien, esta misma mañana me llega una forma más entre las muchas e ingeniosas que hay de robar a los parados:

Una empresa con un nombre muy sonoro, naturalmente en inglés, busca colaboradores expertos a los que, a cambio de una tarjeta y el honor de utilizar su nombre al facturar cobra una cuota de entrada que varía entre 18 y 30.000 euros y, después, una cifra del orden del 10 al 30% sobre facturación.

Naturalmente, los clientes se los tiene que buscar su víctima y se supone que se le abrirán las puertas del Universo una vez que aparezca ante los potenciales clientes con tan prestigioso nombre en su tarjeta. Estas «empresas» además ofrecen a menudo los servicios de un call-center destinado a conseguir entrevistas de forma que no haya que ir a hacer ventas a puerta fría. También cobran por entrevista conseguida, tanto si es con el Director General como con el encargado de la limpieza…y lo mejor de todo: Es absolutamente legal con lo que este tipo de estafadores sin escrúpulos están saliendo como las setas en otoño.

¿No es bastante dura la situación de desempleo para, además, tener que estar atentos a no ser estafados por este tipo de carroñeros?

octubre 28, 2013

Air Safety and low-cost

Low-cost started as an almost marginal issue but, nowadays, some low-cost airlines have outgrown their traditional competitors. Of course, something like that does not happen by chance. A high growth rate for many years usually points to a serious business project. In this context, «serious» means the opposite to a «take the money and run» model, so common in many activities, including Aviation.

Then, we should start with this fact: There are low-cost operators that did not come looking for easy money. This fact, evident in the behavior of some operators, asks for an analysis where respect is deserved and it is not going to be denied here.

Once made clear that we do not speak about people looking for easy model, the business model linked to low-cost shows itself as very interesting, not only because of results but because of eventual hidden weaknesses. We’ll center our analysis in safety and potential impact over safety of low-cost practices:

First, a little bit of common sense: If an operator wants to get better prices, costs are the enemy to beat and safety can be translated into costs. Furthermore, since yield-management appeared, it is hard finding two passengers in a plane who have paid the same for their tickets and, whatever traditional operators can tell us, it is a way to sell below costs to beat low-cost operators with not-so-deep pockets. In this environment, differences in prices have to be really important to resist this kind of competition.

Common sense tells us, also, that decreasing costs in safety can be a hard-to-resist temptation. However, this should be a conclusion that requires a deeper analysis:

Low-cost operators are very conscious that this an easy to reach conclusion and, if true, it can damage them very seriously.

When someone notoriously better known than popular like Michael O’Leary, Ryanair CEO was asked for the risks in the Ryanair business model, he was quite explicit: The risk of making something stupid from our side or an accident in an important low-cost operator.

The investigation after an accident can discover inadequate practices in any airline. However, a low-cost operator has a different risk level: Inadequate practice, if discovered, should not be read in terms of negligence or error but as an usual practice to decrease costs and, hence, as a part of their business model.

Hence, low-cost operators are fully conscious that a single major accident can put at risk their business continuity at a bigger level than the one who should suffer traditional operators. They have tried to minimize this risk in different ways and with different success levels:

Public Relations people from low-cost operators tell anyone willing to listen to them that they are controlled under the same rules that every other. Of course, this statement tries to put in the mind of the listener the idea that they have the same safety level that any other. This statement is true but, without entering in the real capacity of rulemakers and inspectors, can be deactivated with a simple example: Rules for car-makers are the same. Does it mean that a Dacia Logan offers the same safety level that an Audi A8 since both share the same rules?

When there is a serious business project and, of course, big low-cost operators have it, safety cannot be reduced to craft ingenious slogans but has to go much further:

Southwest Airlines, still the most copied model among low-cost operators, based cost reduction in a very specific operating objective: 25 minutes from landing to take-off. This objective has to be hard to reach since other operators, like Jet-Blue, decide to leave it looking for the cost reduction in other places.

Southwest based this objective in a very deep knowledge by every single worker about how his activity was affecting others. Without trying the everyone makes everything started by People Express and hard to keep in the long term, Southwest kepts specialization but, at the same time, created an environment based in the ability of the workers performing the job to detect improvement opportunities.

Ryanair trajectory has been much tougher: Time between flights is only one of the ways to reduce costs. Many others, like who pays the uniform of the workers or the invitation to grab ballpoints from the hotel rooms or the price paid by the new recruits for the privilege of working there…Probably, O’Leary himself should not be offended if defined like a CFO that became CEO because since he is fully conscious of that.

O’Leary is so conscious of his importance in Ryanair as financial watchdog that he decided not to attend meetings where maintenance decisions are made. The decision, together with having someone with high technical profile as the Maintenance Head, is positive but it should be quite reasonnable asking ourselves if that is enough. It is extremely hard creating watertight compartments in any organization and, in this case, it seems that they try to create such a watertight compartment to have Maintenance out of pressure looking for cost reduction in any area in the organization.

However, it is easy forgetting that safety is not a function but a perspective covering all the operations in the organization. If an organization is known for a very specific perspective -cost reduction- asking what will happen when both perspectives clash is a must.

As an example, it is possible deciding to have a good spare parts stocks but, in a cost-reduction driven organization…what should happen if a maintenance work is delayed beyond expectations? what should happen if a pilot put more fuel than stricly legal requirements? what if a pilot, already delayed, does not want to speed-up tasks or make checklists faster than usual? We could find hundred of examples of clashing perspectives and, of course, having Maintenance isolated from cost decrease pressure is not enough. If lowering costs is the dominant perspective, that is something that will be over every decision that someone can take as well in a cockpit as in any other position. That, of course, will affect the real safety level that someone can reach.

Low-cost operators are in the market time enough to be able to make differences among them. Possibly, a soft model, like the Southwest one, centered in cost-reduction in very specific ways, will be less sensible to safety issues than other operators more hard-nosed. These ones will pursue costs wherever they are to exterminate them and this attitude can drive them very often to conflict of perspectives.

For good of all of stake-holders, including passengers, it should be good for the most aggresive companies in their cost-reduction practices to be able to solve the organizational problem that two conflicting perspectives bring, especially if one of them has always the winning hand.

The challenge will not be easy and it is going to require from very imaginative and energetic operators at least so much imagination and energy as the one they devoted to cost reduction and, perhaps, it will make them change some habits that they see as very important since they were an important part of their success.

We will know if they are successful in this effort or if they will make good the Drucker statement success makes obsolete the factors that made it possible. If so, the factor that could be obsolete even though it drove to the past success is precisely the fundamentalism in cost reduction. Fundamentalism, in this context, should be understood in its most literal meaning: Invasion of fields that are not theirs.