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Planning ahead for MRO will save you time and money in the long term. Yes, there will always be the unforeseen incident that renders your plane AOG - an ‘aircraft on ground’ that can’t go anywhere without that important piece of maintenance - but for the most part, run-of-the-mill maintenance if planned properly can run smoothly and cost-effectively. If you’re an operator without your own maintenance department, choosing the right company is crucial. BlueSky spoke to Allan McGreal, Director FBO UK, for Rizon Jet based at London Biggin Hill Airport and to Alan Barnes, Customer Service Manager, for Inflite at London Stansted Airport, for their views on future developments within MRO. Allan McGreal:
It’s true that flight safety and fiscal performance can and do live happily together; most definitely for the steady-state scheduled airline maintenance world, where predicted maintenance is an absolute and airframe contingency is available to the fleet manager when aircraft don’t make it out of maintenance on time. In the volatile world of business aviation maintenance however, there is little or no contingency. A very unsteady-state environment and predicted maintenance perhaps. But with utilisation levels as low as 10 hours monthly, no matter how well planned the maintenance input is, the aircraft is at liberty to arrive for maintenance only when convenient to it rather than the plan. Ever more so than before, the wise owners & operators employ the planning resources of maintenance organisations to exploit the margins between mandated scheduled maintenance, defect repair and that work which enhances (for example, IFE or cosmetic upgrade etc). This is better delivered today when close relationships are formed between owner and maintainer, compared to how it was at the height of the market in 2007 when owner/manager relationships with maintainers were very temporary. It was a busy marketplace back then and aircraft were often viewed as itinerant as they moved between maintainers for any number of reasons; frequently it was downtime – so less cost, or it was what could be got from a maintainer by the operator by way of a line support deal, saving the aircraft a visit to base. Thinking that the bubble may not burst, new MRO providers were planning new capacity and were desperate to secure work to fill the new hangars. In 2011 however, clever maintainers who have survived have used the downturn in flying to achieve a number of changes to their business – some more important than others. After the huge costs of design & construction of new facilities, the establishment of competent and qualified planning systems & skilled planning resources play a key part. But the biggest often unseen gain, has been the injection of scarce capital into new tooling & digital test equipment. When paired with an investment in qualified engineers, such strategies can dramatically reduce down time, significantly improve in-service performance and return a reliable and essential margin necessary to both repay the investor whilst enhancing the in-service support of any given type. It’s simple - plan for profit means what it says.” "What are your thoughts on anticipated future developments within MRO?" “Leaving aside the obvious drive for qualified resource and enough work to keep the maintainer busy, the business aviation airframe & system OEM will always fuel a need for MRO organisations to become ever more capable as product adopts new technology, and ever more efficient by take up of new test equipment for the latest avionic innovation etc. The biggest developments however are likely to be as part of an integrated solution whereby operations & maintenance businesses will combine even more than today. This is where the environment will influence the spaces within which the maintainer will ply their trade – there will soon be no separation between work space & office space as the hangar floor melts into the mezzanine layered office spaces. Boulevards’ will traverse the capacious hangar with access to suites of rooms and workshops and spaces for customers and technicians alike will interact adjacent to aircraft in maintenance. With space on airports increasingly limited and expensive, better and more imaginative use of space will be needed; the design of the maintenance facility of the future will very much look to exploit nature and harness light & heat from the environment that will transform the workspaces. From a technical standpoint, via such forums as MSG3 the maintainer will play an increasing role in ensuring cost effective maintenance for future aircraft fresh from the designer. The regulator will continue to apply increased oversight and regulation as technology innovates at a significant rate and aircraft become increasingly more capable of operation in congested airspace and minimal conditions. The biggest driver for future change and development in MRO however, will be the need the maintainer will have to extract a viable margin whilst equipping the industry with facility & capability enough to meet the challenge of technology, regulation and the environment. These three challenges are not for the faint hearted – can we do it alone, I think not. Take a look at the scheduled airline, even with the volumes on offer to this industry, even these MRO’s have to collaborate in order to meet these three ideals and survive. The aircraft OEM has a direct impact on the shape, size and capability of tomorrows MRO’s by way of its Service Centre network. It is safe to say that if we were to start again with building such a network we would not start from here. Much of what is termed as a service centre network is based on the legacy of existing, timeless relationships built long before OEM’s, operators and airport managers had anything like an established pattern of activity sufficient to identify hot spots. These aged MRO are perhaps now out of place, lacking investment and not keeping pace with the OEM product development and service level expectation as much as a modern non-Service Centre MRO might have. Adjustment will be necessary as the opening up of new territory, displacement of previously busy traffic areas and airports, the economics of support being unsustainable by virtue of technical resource being unavailable and the emergence of new, less costly resource and capability to the east.” " Preservative versus corrective maintenance - When does your company replace equipment, near to the end of its life or long before?" “As a new investment, care & maintenance of support equipment is at its early stage but the policy will be to replace regularly where benefit is found from – efficiency, quality and cost savings from unnecessary maintenance. There is a powerful driver in demonstrating to our customers, regulators & competitors by way of use of the latest equipment, the determination of an organisation such as Rizon Jet to offer the safest, most efficient and technically innovative service to all. It keeps the industry in growth and can often drive out latent poor performance and equipment issues that would otherwise take years to find & resolve. Ultimately, the inherent benefit of an effective equipment policy is one of safe & efficient use for our engineers and customers – the economics of it all means that it will always be to the long game that such a policy looks to win.“ BlueSky finally asked Allan about software and IT systems: " How does the company use them and what other uses in the maintenance of aircraft could these systems be used? Could they be used in tracking counterfeit parts for example. Or tracking of parts that need maintenance?" “Software & competent IT infrastructures are as essential today more than ever – without the efficiencies such systems offer, the maintainer hoping to offer its customers speedy and efficient inputs, the regulator traceable activity and the accountant a fighting chance to extract a margin would find it a hopeless task. Competitively speaking, IT provides a window through which the maintainer can offer its services and prices in full, clear view. It can illustrate a myriad of options, information and education, discussion and choice by employing the linked information sites from the OEM, regulator and multiple forums proffering advice and comment on everything from aircraft to system, to configuration planning, to the texture of the leather on the seats. All of this is capable of being exchanged with an audience across everything from Skype to Facebook and beyond. Of course from a technical standpoint there a number of key, tried and trusted software applications that support all of the main functions that are part of an efficient MRO, but there are applications that span into supplementary uses. From bar-coding to identity patches that can capture, record a components life history and be attached to any component in situ or otherwise ensuring that rogue parts are effectively isolated. Traceability also extends to the transportation of inventory to ever distant parts of the world as aircraft become increasingly capable of distant operations, to places which are short of technical support & without the shipping of parts via many different transportation solutions help would be both costly and extended. GPS and data retrieval systems allow for the maintenance planning teams to co-ordinate very effectively the arrival of repair teams with the correct disposition of technical qualification, timed to coincide with spare parts to ensure that costs are minimised and downtime optimised. From compatible software structures, pretty much everything is possible when the goal is to utilise embedded intelligence from installed planning, tracking and location software the MRO already has invested in – the greatest and perhaps the most intriguing opportunities for improved uptake of IT potential however lies in the use & development of technology not yet considered part of the aviation industry, IT & software that is currently being utilised in the medical profession for example offers the nearest success in optimising the thermal & imaging software for the inspection and assessment of material both for validity (not counterfeit) and for technical integrity when exposed to thermal or structural stresses. These are just simple examples of the benefits awaiting the innovative application of IT and software, combined with the functionality, accessibility and size of hardware available today – such a lot is possible. (see ‘Imagebase tecnology’) as an example. Inflite’s Alan Barnes gave us his views on Preventative versus Corrective maintenance:
Focusing on the Corporate sector, we see a wide spread of importance applied to the subject. Ranging from the larger executive jet operator, operating under the rules of an Air Operator’s Certificate and with several airframes within the fleet, to the aircraft “owner/operator” operating in the Private category for his or hers sole use, as an extension to their array of business tools. With this said, it's clear to see that the interaction with the Part 145 Maintenance facility and request’s for specific maintenance task’s to be carried out as a “preventative maintenance” action varies greatly. It is common for aircraft operating in the Private Category to have little focus on such and quite normal that the aircrafts operation is directly linked to the duties of a Captain or senior pilot or such like. Compared with an AOC operator that in most cases has a similar “engineering department” (as the Part 145 facility) fully equipped to able to completely integrate with the Part 145 and with a true interest and understanding in the overall benefits of Preventative Maintenance. It is also a good indicator for the said operator to demonstrate its ability to deliver its responsibilities under its Continued Airworthiness Management Organization (CAMO) as and where appropriate. With focus on the ‘Private’ operation and purely from a maintenance perspective, we see opportunities lost, where offered product improvement from the Type Certificate holder, are often not implemented. In many cases, because the data is not well received into a good established and well versed point of contact. As a direct result, the platform is not subjected to such improvement and gradually the overall fleet can become degraded, despite the very best intentions of the manufacture. Leading to a reduce reliability and equally a poor reflection within the market place of the given type. Speaking from an Inflite perspective and focusing solely on our fleet, we see a large percentage of ‘free of charge’ service bulletins, not initiated for embodiment by the operator and the opportunity being lost of maintaining the asset to the very highest standards and value. In summary, there are many variables with regard to the requirements of any given state of registry. Within any given fleet, there could be both commercial and private operator’s, each of varying size and resource, therefore leading to a wide spectrum of focus on the subject matter. At the top end of the spectrum, Inflite is able to offer the ‘turn-key’ solution to all needing customers in the private and commercial sectors, given full interface with both subjects and with the foresight of the manufactures recommendation. Allowing an easy and formal presentation of ‘suggested’ preventative maintenance tasks to be embodied at the next scheduled maintenance stop. Thus ensuring the downtime is best utilized in the interest of all parties. At present there are many examples of free of charge product improvements being ‘left on the shelf’, which can never be appropriate as an airframe ages and the type certificate holder attempts to maintain the very best standing of the fleet, without of the need to make such subjects mandatory.” To conclude, clearly MRO is no longer just a man with a spanner, today there are many processes and procedures that companies and private individual operators must comply with, to ensure their aircraft are safe to fly. There are some updates that are OEM recommended but for whatever reason operators/owners do not have them implemented. The subject matter is complex and changes daily, so keeping ahead can be very challenging. With grateful thanks to Allan McGreal of Rizon Jet and Alan Barnes of Inflite for their valuable time and help in preparing this article.
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