Aircraft Maintenance Management in the Context of Commercial Aircrafts - Essay Example

Introduction Aircraft maintenance management is a program or framework responsible for repair, safety, sustainability, performance, and inspection of aircrafts and its components. Aircraft maintenance management offers complete and unified package to aircrafts through fulfilling and performing all kind of elementary and secondary related activities. The function or tasks of aircrafts maintenance management includes various operations like replacement of tire, light bulbs, fuses, inspecting compression of cylinder, washing, cleaning, servicing, refuelling and many more. All such secondary operations are being visualised as a part of manufacturing process and therefore holds considerable importance in the context of commercial aircrafts (Deutsch & Pew 2005). In this context, underlying essay aims at demonstrating application of aircraft maintenance management process within the context of commercial aircraft operation and critical analysis of the aircraft maintenance management process as well. Demonstrate the application of aircraft maintenance management within the context of commercial aircraft operation Commercial aircraft operation includes set of activities and functions performed by the aircraft for a business and profit motive. The profit concern and motive is the unique feature of the commercial aircraft operation and distinguishes it from non-commercial aircraft operations. The aircraft operations for military and private purpose are included in the category of non-commercial aircraft operations. On the other hand, commercial aircraft operations provide transport and conveyance services to the passengers, cargo or mail in consideration of a specified remuneration. The non-commercial aircraft operations are not meant and availed by general public. The general public utilises the commercial aircraft operations for the purpose of travelling and transporting from one place to another (Camp Aircraft Maintenance Programs 2011). In relation to this, aircraft maintenance management assumes to have significant application or relevance in the context of commercial aircraft operations. It is due to reason that aircraft maintenance management ensures and supports all the necessary activities or functions performed in commercial aircraft operations in order to provide safety and convenient travelling experience to the passengers. In other words, aircraft maintenance management is concerned and deals with each and every aspect of commercial aircraft operations with an integrated framework of maintenance, engineering, and management modules. Such integrated framework monitors and deals with every minute function of commercial aircraft operations ranging from aircraft building to its flying. This kind of efficient tracking and monitoring minimises the chance of any kind of unforeseen or unfortunate events or accidents. Furthermore, the application of aircraft maintenance management within the context of commercial aircraft operation can be demonstrated under the following headings: 3.1. Optimal scheduling: Flight scheduling is one of the significant area or domain of commercial aircraft operations. The commercial aircraft operations require an integrated flight scheduling system in order to plan aircraft trips, downtime for maintenance and planning future availability. The proper and effective scheduling of commercial aircrafts is crucial for the successful accomplishment of overall goal of rendering timely services to the passengers. The proper and effective scheduling of aircraft is crucial not only for the passengers but also for commercial aircrafts in ensuring optimum utilisation of maintenance resources and aircraft availability (U.S. Supersonic Commercial Aircraft: Assessing NASA's High Speed Research Program. 2007). In the current few years, commercial aircrafts has confronted with the problem of planning and preparing effective schedules. It is due to reason that scheduling process is a time consuming process and requires commercial aircrafts to spend significant amount of time on drafting scheduling programs. The problem of preparing schedules has been intensified with the increase in the number of passengers nationally and internationally. The aircraft maintenance management seeks to solve this problem through taking entire responsibility of generating and preparing schedules for commercial aircrafts. The schedule for commercial aircrafts is prepared through balancing available flying services and passenger requirements. For this purpose, aircraft maintenance utilises a program named mixed integer program (MIP) to forecast and prepares daily flying schedules. The concerned program also ensures that flight availability has been distributed uniformly in accordance with passenger requirements. This computation allows the commercial aircrafts to fulfil the passenger demand through evenly distribution of such demand across the entire horizon of flight availability. 3.2. Inventory control: Inventory control is also another significant commercial aircraft operation demonstrating the application of aircraft maintenance management. The aircraft maintenance management not only manage and organise the inventory but also facilitates in inventory forecasting. The inventory forecasting is performed in light of historical statistics and projected future requirements. The historical statistics provide data regarding inventory required in the past and trend of customer demand as well. The historical data regarding customer demand and inventory level is then utilised by the aircraft maintenance management for predicting future requirements and estimations. The future inventory requirements and estimations facilitate or allow the commercial airlines to compute material requirements and planning stock levels and reorder points accordingly (Aircraft management guidelines. 2011). The aircraft maintenance management not only allow commercial aircrafts to plan material requirements and stock level but also provide them with automatic replenishment module. The automatic replenishment module allows the commercial aircrafts to place automatic purchase order in the event whereby inventory fell down below the desired level. In other words, the manual tasks of reordering inventory and materials have been completely eliminated by the automatic replenishment module. The reordering is done automatically and there is no need of keeping a check on inventory level by commercial aircrafts. This powerful combination of automatic replenishment module with other inventory forecasting techniques provides maximum efficiency and optimisation of demand and supply forces to commercial aircrafts. 3.3. Engine performance and monitoring: The successful accomplishment of the flying services in order to entail maximum customer satisfaction depends on the engine performance of commercial aircrafts to a wide extent. The optimum performance of engine is not only considered essential for customer service and satisfaction rather it is being identified as one of the essential commercial aircraft operation. The long lasting, durable, and reliable performance of engine acts as a cornerstone around which performance of commercial aircrafts revolves around. The better the engine performance, the smoother will be airline operations and vice-versa. It would not be exaggerated to term engine as heart of the entire aircraft body. The proper and smooth functioning of body i.e., aircraft depends on the heart i.e., engine. Any problem encountered in it affects the functioning of whole body. In this regard, it acts as a quite intelligent action and decision on the part of commercial aircrafts to check performance and function of engine at regular intervals. The regular checking and monitoring of aircrafts engines helps in diagnosing and correcting issues at the initial stage and thereby preventing any major damage and failure. Aircraft maintenance management facilitates this task of diagnosing and monitoring engine condition and performance regularly in order to minimise the failure and correcting deviations at earliest possible level. This task is being performed by the aircraft maintenance management with the help of a program named Engine Condition Trend Monitoring (ECTM). The program is devised with the purpose of monitoring the functioning and performance of aircraft engine. The aircraft maintenance management implanted information recorded means in Engine Condition Trend Monitoring (ECTM) program to monitor the engine performance both during and after the flight. The information accorded means supplies the information regarding the aircraft engine position and sustainability immediately to the concerned officials and engineers. The ECTM program monitors the small and minute issues very cautiously in order to prevent such issues from becoming more catastrophic or disastrous. This application of aircraft maintenance management has allowed the various aviation authorities across the world to recognise it as an essential safety, precaution and maintenance device (Bazargan 2010). 3.4. Maintenance, repair and overhaul performance operations The aircraft maintenance management of modern times are an integration of various sub-systems and components to determine and govern the position of accessibility, reliability and sustainability position of commercial aircrafts. In the past years, maintenance, repair and overhaul services were being considered as secondary operations in the context of commercial aircrafts service. But, increasing cases of airline crash and destruction has forced the commercial airline players to identify repair, maintenance and overhaul services as primary commercial aircraft operation instead of secondary one. The optimum maintenance, repair and overhaul services ensure the sustainability and reliability of commercial aircrafts. The increasing significance of commercial aircrafts repair, maintenance and overhaul services has increased the application of aircraft maintenance management simultaneously. It is due to the advanced role played by the aircraft maintenance management in providing adequate repair, maintenance and overhaul services to the commercial aircrafts. The enhanced diagnostic capability of aircraft maintenance management identifies the space constraints and other problems in structural layout of commercial aircrafts. This diagnosis is crucial for determining need of repair and maintenance in commercial aircrafts (King 2006). Any kind of threat identified by the aircraft maintenance management is being visualised as a symbol for repair and maintenance need in commercial aircrafts. These kinds of threats can prove detrimental for the safety and sustainability position of commercial aircrafts. Such repair and maintenance needs are addressed with the immediate effect in commercial aircrafts with the help of aircraft maintenance management. In other words, aircraft maintenance management utilises various performance measurement indices in commercial aircrafts to stimulate the process of continuous improvements for providing best flight services coupled with high safety and improved operational viability to the customers. 3.5. Aircraft landing The operations of commercial aircrafts cannot be said to be completed without the proper and scheduled landing of aircrafts. Timely and scheduled landing is being visualised as an integral operations of commercial aircrafts. It is due to reason that number of accidents incurring during aircraft landing increase simultaneously in accordance with the accidents taking place during the flying. The aviation authorities of various countries has conducted various research studies in order to diagnose the cases and identifying factors responsible for poor aircraft landing (Coppola 2010). The research studies has evidenced that the poor visibility is the major factor or reason responsible for accidents incurring during aircraft landing. This problem continued till 1930s whereby landing programs of commercial aircrafts failed to determine the visibility required for accomplishing landing process effectively. In those years, landing programs were failed to establish balance between the visibility required by commercial aircraft and available visibility. As a result, commercial aircrafts landed in the absence of adequate knowledge about the visibility and resulted in the accidents. It has also been seen that commercial aircrafts in the past years has also failed in landing during adverse weather conditions. The design and functionality of commercial aircrafts were not adaptive and responsive towards adverse weather conditions. In light of the above discussed issues and problems, aircraft maintenance management has been evolved to support and improve aircraft landing operations. Since aircraft landing is being considered as one of the essential operations in commercial aircrafts and aircraft maintenance management aims to improve such landing operations. Thus aircraft maintenance management facilitate or improves the commercial aircraft operations in one way or the other. The aircraft maintenance management enables the commercial aircrafts to perform landing function with adequate knowledge of visibility of destination places (Ben-Daya 2009). The program launched by the aircraft maintenance management in the commercial aircrafts allows to them to forecast the visibility of destination places and establishing balance between available visibility and required visibility. Such programs of aircraft maintenance management have proved effective enough in reducing cases of landing accidents. In other words, research efforts designed by aircraft maintenance management to explore and diagnose the visibility factor brings has considerably improved and supported the landing operations of commercial aircrafts. 3.6. Airworthiness certificate The airworthiness certificate is a critical issue and emerged as a significant operation of commercial aircrafts. The commercial aircrafts cannot provide flight services to the customers without obtaining airworthiness certificate. The airworthiness certificate acts as a conclusive evidence of the fact that commercial aircraft has fulfilled all the desired guidelines and conditions and thus in a position of providing flight services. The conduction of flight serves without obtaining airworthiness certificate is considered as infringement of aviation laws and regulations. The importance of airworthiness certificate in initiating flight services makes it as an essential operation in the commercial aircrafts. The aviation authorities issue airworthiness certificate on the basis of report or recommendation fostered by the aircraft maintenance manager or supervisor. The report and recommendation of aircraft maintenance manager has a significant bearing on the final decision on aviation authorities’. This fact and situation witnessed the application and importance of aircraft maintenance management in commercial aircrafts. The successful accomplishment of all the conditions and requirements prescribed by the aircraft maintenance management enables the commercial aircrafts players to obtain the airworthiness certificate. On the other hand, lack of complying with the directives and modules of aircraft maintenance management creates difficulty for commercial aircrafts in obtaining the concerned certificate and initiating flying process (Dhillon 2009). The receiving of airworthiness certificate should not only be viewed as a mere fulfilment of prescribed conditions and regulatory frameworks. Rather, it should be considered as an essential step for ensuring public safety and sustainability. The importance of public safety and sustainability should be the top most consideration of all the airlines and aircraft maintenance management is being viewed as a means of fulfilling such consideration. Critically analyse the aircraft maintenance management process Aircraft maintenance management adopt an integrated approach for ensuring safety and reliability in aircrafts through preventive maintenance, servicing equipment, inspections, acquiring and maintaining aircraft parts, determining airworthiness and many more. Aircraft maintenance management is a technical process attempts to regulate aircraft operations in accordance to prescribed rules and procedures. The implementation of aircraft maintenance management has reduced the time and fastens the various aircraft operations to a considerable extent. There are various application of aircraft maintenance management discussed above witnessing the increasing significance and application of aircraft maintenance management. Although aircraft maintenance management contributes and assists various aircraft operations, yet there are various errors and loopholes in it posing question on its effectiveness and usability (Poor maintenance likely led to fatal T-38 crash. 2009). In light of this, the critical analysis and discussion of aircraft maintenance management appears quite profound and valid in present context. There are various research studies and articles published worldwide indicated that errors in aircraft maintenance management are one of the significant factor or contributor to aircraft accidents. It has been identified that aircraft maintenance management is the largest contributor in causing aircrafts accidents after human factors. The aircraft maintenance management has not only resulted in aircrafts accidents but also imposed significant financial burden on the airlines. It is due to the ineffectiveness of aircraft maintenance management in optimising airlines scheduling and thus resulting in flight delays and cancellations. The cases of flight delays and cancellations imposed significant financial burden on the airlines and spoil their image among the public. The poor aircraft maintenance and maintenance negligence has been considered and identified as one of the major two causes behind aviation accidents. The statistics showed that failure of aircrafts and associated equipments has also accounted as the major factor for aircrafts accidents and one-third of such failure cases related to maintenance error. It has been estimated that around 12% of the aircraft accidents till 2011 incurred on account of poor maintenance and errors in aircraft maintenance management. The study undertaken on the fatal airline accidents in US revealed that problem and errors in aircraft maintenance management has contributed to 42% of the aircrafts accidents (Poor maintenance started accident chain that resulted in Learjet high-speed runway excursion. 2010). The aircrafts accidents on account of aircraft maintenance management has caused due to the breakdown of maintenance program, processes, decision and functioning. In addition to the above discussed factor and causes, lack of adequate training on the part of aircrafts maintenance management personnel has also invited various criticism in aircraft maintenance management process. In other words, lack and absence of adequate training intensified the situation and has put the aircraft maintenance management into more vulnerable position. The problems and errors in aircraft maintenance management has not only been confined and limited to the past years. The present years has also witnessed numerous cases of aircrafts accidents on account of aircraft maintenance management. The cases of aircraft accidents continue to depict increasing trend and aircraft maintenance management failed to reduce such accident cases. Conclusion The above stated discussion of application of aircraft maintenance management in the specific context of commercial aircrafts and its critical analysis depicts various concluding remarks. First set of conclusion relates to the fact that aircraft maintenance management provides value added initiatives to the commercial aircrafts through performing integrated set of functions and operations. However, there are also various errors and problems identified in relation to aircraft maintenance management questioning on the sustainability and usability of aircraft maintenance management. It is necessary to overcome such issues in order to recognise aircraft maintenance management as a complete package. References Aircraft management guidelines. 2011. [online]. Available at: http://www.ogp.org.uk/pubs/390.pdf [accessed on 1 February 2013]. Bazargan, M. 2010. Airline Operations and Scheduling. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. Ben-Daya, M. 2009. Handbook of Maintenance Management and Engineering. Springer. Coppola, D.P. 2010. Introduction to International Disaster Management. Elsevier. Camp Aircraft Maintenance Programs. 2011. [online]. Available at: http://www.campsystems.com/Brochure.PDF [accessed on 1 February 2013]. Deutsch, S. & Pew, R.W. 2005. [online]. Available at: http://hsi.arc.nasa.gov/groups/HCSL/publications/Deutsch_SinglePilot_2005.pdf [accessed on 1 February 2013]. Dhillon, B.S. 2009. Human Reliability, Error, and Human Factors in Engineering Maintenance: With Reference to Aviation and Power Generation. CRC Press. King, F.H. 2006. Aviation Maintenance Management. SIU Press. Poor maintenance started accident chain that resulted in Learjet high-speed runway excursion. 2010. [online]. Available at: http://aviationsafetynetwork.wordpress.com/2010/04/07/poor-maintenance-started-accident-chain-that-resulted-in-learjet-high-speed-runway-excursion/ [accessed on 1 February 2013]. Poor maintenance likely led to fatal T-38 crash. 2009. [online]. Available at: http://www.airforcetimes.com/news/2009/10/airforce_crash_report_101409w/ [accessed on 1 February 2013]. U.S. Supersonic Commercial Aircraft: Assessing NASA's High Speed Research Program. 2007. National Academies Press. Read More