A Capability Maturity Model for Flight Training
(Room S320A)
28 Nov 18
8:30 AM
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9:00 AM
The aviation industry invests heavily in technology to ensure training quality and compliance with flight safety regulations. At the same time, the steady growth of air travel is driving the demand for pilots. Maintaining pilot throughput without sacrificing the quality of training is a major challenge facing the industry. A methodology for improving training could potentially benefit flight training organizations by identifying areas for process improvement.
We propose a Flight Training Maturity Model (FTMM) derived from the Capability Maturity Model Integrated (CMMI) published by the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University. Initially developed to improve the performance of military software projects, the CMMI is a reference model designed to evaluate and improve the software development lifecycle process. Maturity models are not new and they exist for many disciplines. Relevant models include (Wagenstein, PMI, 2006) in education and training (Marshall 2012) in eLearning, the Federal Aviation Administration Integrated Capability Maturity Model (FAA-iCMM) and (Ibrahim, 2000) in system engineering. We believe the flight training process can benefit from an adaptive training approach based on competencies. Adding a competency-based approach to the maturity model was studied by (Gillies & Howard, 2003) for change management in healthcare, but can benefit the aviation sector as well.
In our paper, we derive from the CMMI’s five-level maturity scale an analytical framework for flight training that defines key performance indicators (KPIs) for each key process area, in order to evaluate organizations. The KPIs target the training processes, participants, learning environments, and technologies involved at each maturity level. Using existing training center programs and industry standards, such as the Analysis-Design-Development-Implementation-Evaluation (ADDIE) instructional system design framework and the FAA–Industry Training Standards (FITS),