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Why is the communication

and handovers in a large


aircraft structural repair are
vitally important?

In base maintenance where mostly aircraft structural


repairs will be carried out and span more than one or
more shifts to be completed. Hence, shift and task
handovers are needed to ensure that all the works
and progress will be passed on to next shift clearly.
Communication is a very important part which form a
good shift handover. Good communication and shift
handover are to ensure good continuity of the work
and task. Shift handover basically depends on the
outgoing personnels ability to understand and pass
over the job, incoming personnels ability to
understand and retrieve the information provided by
outgoing person. As a good rule of thumb, there
should be an overlap of 20 or 30 minutes for the shift
handover to take place. Every outgoing personnel
should clearly brief the incoming person about the
work progress, problems encountered and tasks
targeted to be completed by that shift. The most
important must to ensure them whom you briefed

are providing the feedback by understandable


reaction. Types of communication that can be used in
handover are either in written form or verbal form. To
ensure a purposeful communication is established,
the sender must make sure the receiver is using the
same channel of communication and language. For
verbal communication, this might be face-to-face, or
via telephone. Written communication might be
notes, memos, documents or emails.
Last but not least, good communication and shift
handover are important because they can provide
traceability. Each personnel involved in structural
repairs are deemed responsible for the tasks which
they perform. As a result, every tasks can be clearly
traced back and the person can be easily discovered
if the part that under him give arise to a problem. In
addition, good communication and task handover are
important to reduce or prevent any mistake or
accident from happening. Since the all the tasks are
clearly communicated, improper use of tools, steps
or procedures can be avoided to ensure the
efficiency of the work.
As conclusion, the standard operating procedures for
shift handover will be clearly listed in most of the
maintenance organization exposition(MOE) for their
staffs to adhere. In order for a free accident working
environment, good communication must be
established and promoted as good safety culture.

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