Sofema Aviation Services (SAS) www.sassofia.com considers the basic building blocks of the EASA Part 145 Production Planning Function and considers how it all fits together.
Introduction
A strong & effective organisation will see Production Planning at the heart of the maintenance organisation. Primary roles of the Production Planning Department include:
- Planning (forecasting, planning, and control):
o Forecasting activities include estimating the maintenance workload for the existing fleet, and creating maintenance plans for the forthcoming period.
o Forecasting is of course concerned with the future workload of the organization.
o Planning typically involves scheduling upcoming maintenance, and includes planning and scheduling details (manpower, parts, facility) and timeframe requirements for such maintenance.
- Scheduling all aircraft maintenance activity within the airline.
The Production Planning group usually interfaces with the Оperator’s Maintenance Planning department and is typically responsible for reviewing and ensuring Documentation, Manpower, Facilities, Tooling, Equipment, and Materials to meet all upcoming maintenance requirements.
This obligation requires competence in the following areas:
- Workload planning,
- Goal setting,
- Implementing, and
- Continuous Monitoring.
Production Planning should take full account of both routine and nonroutine maintenance requirements, noting of course it is the non-routine requirements – for example, AD’s Mods / Service Bulletins which create the biggest challenge.
Handovers, Status Updating & Reporting
- Effective handovers together with the essential communications which goes hand in hand with the handover process, is an integral part of the handover process.
o Ideally the production planning group should collectively be a party to the knowledge and information which is shared during Handovers.
- The need for successful status reporting at the beginning and throughout the maintenance check should be considered as a requirement of the highest order.
o Knowing the accomplishment status of the maintenance check together with the following information.
- How many manhours remain to complete the check,
- What will be the date of completion,
- Are there any show stoppers (issues which could delay the output date)?
Note: Over time it is possible for the Production Planning group to gain sufficient experience on a particular aircraft type to the point where we can reasonably predict or anticipate the requirement in respect of manpower and other pre-requisites which will help the pre-planning and our ability to cope with unforeseen circumstances.
Concerning Competence & Ongoing Quality Control
- The importance of Managing Competencies within the Production Planning Process should be a major consideration.
- Quality Control processes which can be used as a measure of departmental effectiveness to ensure optimum & efficient delivery.
Next Steps
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Sofema Aviation Services (SAS) www.sassofia.com and Sofema Online (SOL) www.sofemaonline.com provide Maintenance Planning & Production Planning Training courses as Classroom, Webinar or Online regulatory and vocational short courses. For additional questions or comments please visit our websites or email team@sassofia.com
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Aircraft, Aircraft Maintenance, Aircraft Production Planning, aviation, Aviation Training, EASA Part 145, Maintenance, Part 145, 145 Production Planning, 145, Quality Control, Planning, SAS blogs
