Sofema Aviation Services (SAS) www.sassofia.com considers interface issues between Part M Maintenance Planning (operator) & Part 145 Production Planning (Maintainer)
Introduction
Whilst Production Planning is a scalable activity, means in a small organization it is an additional duty of production engineering personnel, in a large organization or an MRO it becomes a significant department. In every relationship between operator & maintainer, effective communication is the key to an effective business outcome.
What Attributes and Competencies should a Production Planner possess?
A comprehensive understanding of the regulatory environment together with an in-depth understanding of the company’s processes and procedures is an essential requirement to be an effective Production Planner.
A good understanding of all interfaces between Maintenance and Production Planning.
To be able to focus and support the delivery of best practice processes to meet the challenge of effective Production Planning.
To demonstrate a good understanding of Quality and Safety Principles and how they can support the effectiveness of the Production Planning function.
Note: Production Planning is a dedicated element within EASA Part 145 reference to 145.A.47 whereas Maintenance Planning tasks will derive from EASA Part M Subpart C.
Please consider the following:
- Whilst we understand that all Part 145 organisations (Aircraft Maintenance Organisation (AMO) & Maintenance Repair Organisations (MRO)) Are required to deliver the production planning function, It is the organisations who are able to develop strategies to improve and optimize the processes that are the ones who will derive real benefits.
- The real opportunity for an organization is to use the Production Department, not just as a service provider within the organization, but as an integrator of best practices.
- In an effective Production Planning department within a medium to large size organization The Production Planning activities which are driven solely by regulatory requirements may in fact contribute as little as 20% of the departmental workload. The remainder of the workload (up to 80%) consists of the ongoing management of the various activities under management within the organization.
Developing an Organizational for Optimizing Production Planning
Organizational Strategies for general efficiency improvements may be driven quite effectively by data and experiences generated from within the Production Planning department.
These activities recognize the true importance of the function and the fact that Production Planning sits at the organisation’s crossroads, interfacing with almost every department in the organization and involved in almost every step of the production planning.
Consider the following list of potential interface exposures, each of which can all support minor system improvements
- Work orders not carried out
- A mismatch between logs/work order and work carried out/actual configuration
- Scheduled tasks overdue
- A mismatch between maintenance forecast and actual times/cycles
- Action not signed off
- AD not embodied on a/c
- Action sign-off / explanation incorrect or unclear
- Instructions/limitations to other team/shift/department not communicated / unclear / incorrect
- Additional inspections not planned/carried out
- Defect deferred with incorrect procedure/reference/follow up
- Work orders/tasks not in planning
- Authorisation does not cover work carried out/authorisation issued
- Maintenance documentation
- Modification not carried out IAW AMM/SRM/other instructions
- AMM/SRM/other instructions for modification are not clear
- Modification completed but technical issues still present
- Modification completed, incorrectly follow-up
- Repair not carried out IAW AMM/SRM/other instructions
- AMM/SRM/other instructions for repair are not clear
- Repair completed but technical issues still present
- Repair completed, incorrectly follow-up
- Uncertainty about status/certification basis for modification/repair Instructions or references incorrect/unclear
- Incorrect or incomplete documentation present/used
Data-Driven Optimization
Data is the key to building up an understanding of the various opportunities to optimize in particular and with the ongoing support of management as well as input from the quality and safety management system processes
If an organization is also able to implement performance Quality Assurance driven processes (as opposed to solely compliance process) together with a proactive Production Planning role, there is an opportunity to gather the data that management is able to use to improve efficiencies.
Next Steps
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Sofema Aviation Services (SAS) www.sassofia.com and Sofema Online (SOL) www.sofemaonline.com offer multiple Production Planning & Maintenance Planning EASA Regulatory Compliant & Vocational Training. Please see the websites or email team@sassofia.com
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145 Production Planning, Aircraft, Aircraft Maintenance, Aircraft Maintenance Organisation (AMO), aviation, aviation safety, CAMO, EASA, EASA Maintenance Planning, EASA Part 145, EASA Part M, EASA Part M Subpart C, EASA Quality Assurance, Maintenance Planning, Maintenance Repair Organisation (MRO), SAS blogs
