How it works
Each round shows where your ramp is at risk and what to change with the people who do the work. The next round shows whether it made the ramp safer. The same steps as LOSA, made for the ramp; a round takes a few weeks.
Set up the programme
Agree the rules with management and the workforce: observations are voluntary, de-identified and never used for discipline. Choose a small team to run it and decide which ports, shifts and aircraft types to sample. The templates include a set-up checklist and an agreement to sign.
Train the observers
Observers are experienced ramp people. They learn to describe what they see in plain words, "what and how, not why", and to code it consistently. Practice exercises check how closely each observer agrees with the reference answers before they start. See the observer course.
Observe normal work
The observer fills in the turnaround details, then watches from arrival to pushback. They speak short notes into the NOMIC Ramp app on their phone using its own dictation, or write them on the paper form. Finished observations are sent to the team's computers, encrypted. They never record the crew's voices, names or staff numbers.
Code the notes
After the turnaround, the observer selects words in their notes and gives each a code from the coding guide: threats, enablers, variations (where work as done differs from work as imagined), good practice, and any undesired state.
Check the coding together
As in a LOSA data verification roundtable, two or three observers read each set of notes against its codes and agree any changes. Only checked observations count in the results, so one person's habits don't shape the findings.
Look at the results
The tool counts what turned up and links conditions to what happened in the same turnaround. Expand shows what goes with work going well; Shrink shows what goes with work getting harder. On-time departure is reported separately, as an operational outcome: never combined with safety, and never by crew, shift or observer. You can compare your round with the NOMIC reference data.
Learn with the people who do the work
Each finding can become a Learning Team pack: what the data shows, quotes from the notes, and questions for a session with the people who plan the work and the people who do it. The group chooses something to try. The aim: make it easy to do the right thing and hard to do the wrong thing.
Measure again
Each Learning Team's action goes into the action plan with a person responsible and one measure to watch. The next round uses the same codes, so the plan shows whether the change made the job easier.
A first round, at one station
People
A programme lead, 4 or 5 observers (experienced ramp people trusted by their peers) and 2 or 3 of them for the weekly checking session.
Time
Observers: about 7 hours of online course, then 1½ to 2 hours per turnaround. Programme lead: 2 or 3 days to set up, half a day a week during the round, 2 days for the report.
Weeks
4 to 8 weeks to agree it with the workforce and train observers, then 3 to 4 weeks to observe 75 to 100 turnarounds.
What you get at the end: a report and dashboard from your own turnarounds, compared with the reference data; the links between threats, variations and outcomes; Learning Team packs for what to change; and an action plan you measure again next round.
How many observations?
Start small: one station, 4 or 5 observers and 75 to 100 turnarounds over 3 to 4 weeks is a good first look. With fewer than 30, the tool shows a warning, because one turnaround moves a percentage a lot. Spread observations across shifts, ports and aircraft types you want to learn about.
What you need
- A phone or tablet per observer, with a current web browser
- Permission to use a device airside: check airport and company rules first
- A shared, secure place for backup files
- Time for the checking group to meet
Already have procedures, audits and an SMS? See how NOMIC Ramp fits with them.