Considerations presented by Steve Bentley www.sassofia.com
Sofema Aviation Services currently offers 10 different reliability related training courses – Organisations which focus on and employ the data generated by the reliability program in the most effective way see a real and meaningful return on the investment.
Key reasons for a Reliability Program include –
To ensure realization of the design level of safety and reliability of the equipment, to ensure the restoration of a component to specification levels when deterioration has occurred, to obtain the information necessary for design improvements of those items whose design reliability proves inadequate, and ensure objectives are met at minimum direct and indirect costs.
The Basis of an Aircraft Reliability Program Considers –
A failure is an unsatisfactory condition. There are two types of failures: functional and potential. Functional failures are typically reported by operating crews. Maintenance crews typically discover potential failures.
Failure Consequences
A potential failure is an identifiable physical condition, which indicates that a functional failure is imminent. The consequences of a functional failure determine the priority of a maintenance effort.
These consequences fall into the following general categories:
a) Safety consequences, involving possible loss of the equipment and its occupants;
b) Operational consequences, which involve an indirect economic loss as well as the direct cost of repair;
c) Non-operational consequences, which involve only the direct cost of repair; or
d) Hidden failure consequences, which involve exposure to a possible multiple failure as a result of the undetected failure of a hidden function.
Reliability Driven Maintenance Requirements
In a reliability-based maintenance program, scheduled maintenance is required for any item whose loss of function or mode of failure could have safety consequences. If preventative tasks cannot reduce the risk of such failures to an acceptable level, the item requires redesign to alter its failure consequences.
Scheduled maintenance is also required for any item whose functional failure will not be evident to the operating crew, and therefore reported for corrective action.
In all other cases the consequences of failure are economic, and maintenance tasks directed at preventing such failures must be justified on economic grounds. All failure consequences, including economic consequences, are established by the design characteristics of the equipment and can be altered only by basic changes in the design.
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