Classifying plant operator maintenance proficiency: Examining personal variables

For plant managers in charge of personnel recruitment, selecting the ideal plant operative rests upon the operator's proficiency and the manager's intuition and judgement. Research modelling of plant operators' maintenance proficiency was used to provide a classification tool to assist managers select the best operative. Three models were produced and evaluated in order to ascertain model robustness, efficiency and validity. The most efficient model used three personal attributes: years of relevant working experience on the machine, personal disposition and operator reliability. Validation statistics revealed that there was no significant difference between actual and predicted classifications and therefore the predictions were shown to be both reliable and robust. Future work is proposed that aims to model other factors that influence operator maintenance proficiency: work environment, motivational management, and training and educational factors.