What is Production Planning ?
A technically driven process to utilize resources to produce the maximum output within a specific time period. Aviation Production Planning is a scalable activity, means in a small organization it could be an additional duty of production engineering personnel, whilst in a large organization or an MRO it becomes a significant department.
Production planning in Aircraft Maintenance helps Maintainers manage the data necessary to measure their need in terms of several elements including manpower planning and crew scheduling as well as tooling and material management.
Production Planning is a dedicated element within 145 reference to 145.A.47. So we understand therefore that all 145 & MRO organisations must in fact deliver the production planning function.
The real challenges for an organization is to use the Production Department, not just as a service provider within the organization, but as an integrator of best practice, with the ultimate goal of Production planning being to minimize the disconnects between the Aircraft Maintenance Organisation (AMO) Actual and Expected outcomes.
Where are the Challenges?
Ensuring the necessary support of management together with a strong interface with the Quality & Safety System.
Delivering on the need to provide maximum availability.
Understanding the scale and depth of the required maintenance activity to be able to meet the obligation with adequate planning in terms of scheduling the maintenance work Concurrent with the availability of the required, facilities and manpower (ensuring the appropriate skill set being available).
The operator is responsible for the Flight Schedule, Utilisation and availability so there is clearly a disconnect between the Operator and AMO which needs to be negotiated to ensure all variables are taken into account for the optimum maintenance product considering Return on Investment and Capacity Planning of the Facility.
Manpower skill level, competency and training is a significant issue which is often not given the management “bandwidth” it deserves Manpower efficiency is an incredibly important driver and tool to optimise our efficiency across the business process.
What can be developed?
We can develop Organisational Strategies for general efficiency and improvements may be driven quite effectively from data and experiences generated from within the Production Planning department.
Such additional activities recognize the true importance of the Production Planning function and the fact that Production Planning sits at the organisations cross roads, interfacing with almost every department in the organization and involved in almost every step of the production planning
Contact Sofema Aviation Services now www.sassofia.com To organise your Production Planning Training Course. Email office@sassofia.com with your specific requirements. We can support both Classroom and Online training.
