Current CSBD Project

FAA Aviation Safety Inspector Staffing Standards

Connection to project scope, roster, and meetings (CPS system)

The NRC, through the Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education (DBASSE), under a congressional mandate, has formed a committee to study the methods and models used by the Flight Standards Service of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to develop staffing standards for Aviation Safety Inspectors (ASIs), job series 1825. The committee will examine and assess the methods and models now in use or in development at FAA, as well as alternative methods and models, including performance-based standards. The committee will examine the FAA's current and historical experience with ASI staffing standards, determine key characteristics of the Flight Standards organization that may influence the appropriateness of various methods, and evaluate methods used by other similar organizations to develop staffing standards. The committee will devote special attention to the cognitive and analytic demands of the evolving ASI job, and to the urgent needs to reallocate resources that may occur in Flight Standards. The committee's report will provide the FAA with recommendations on the best way to proceed with development of future staffing standards for ASIs and will include estimates of the time and resource requirements of the recommended methods, given the organizational requirements and values of the FAA.