Aviation industry

Minimizing Risks and Delays Through Better Project Management

One of the most important aspects of an airline business is aircraft maintenance. Out of all the factors involved in operations, maintenance is the one that is completely unavoidable and subject to strict regulations and oversight. It requires careful coordination and planning, since everything from tools, materials, workforce, and timeframe will have a significant effect on the business when modified or removed entirely. This is the reason why aircraft maintenance is one of the most vital parts of cost optimization – an airline business needs to perform a delicate balancing act of ensuring optimal levels of service quality, safety, and competitive delivery times.

Situation

Aircraft Heavy Maintenance Process

It is generally accepted that managing a heavy maintenance process involves dealing with two interrelated points of conflict: first is the sheer complexity brought on by the huge amount of resources involved in the process, and next is that there is always a measure of uncertainty when it comes to scheduling of tasks.

Aircraft Heavy Maintenance Process

There are several factors involved during heavy maintenance: ground facilities, equipment, technical information, parts, the workforce, and the aircraft itself. The sheer number of factors involved and the complexity of the interrelationship between them means that careful management is mandatory. Failure in just one of these elements will affect the rest and may result in the entire maintenance plan’s failure. And maintenance failures in the aircraft industry is not only ruinous to the business, but could also cost lives.

Even a simple delay at the end of the maintenance service will have negative effects to a business, as it could lead to changes in flying schedules, delays, or even outright cancellation of flights.

Furthermore, heavy maintenance services are usually scheduled one after the other, and a delay in one will definitely result in delays further down the chain, resulting in a domino effect that would see the airline’s short and long-term schedules negatively affected.

What’s worse is that a delay in heavy maintenance schedule will have a significant financial impact on an airline both in terms of increasing the cost of operation and reducing revenue. This is because a delay will usually force management to increase their workforce or pay more for overtime, and may need to purchase additional equipment and parts. Added to this is that the longer an aircraft stays on the ground, the less seats that will be available for flyers, therefore a reduced earning capacity for the airline.

Uncertainty of unscheduled maintenance tasks

The existence of a maintenance service program ensures that scheduled maintenance tasks can be subject to planning and coordination, but there are still unscheduled and unplanned activities that may arise even during normal operation of the aircraft – any machine is subject to unforeseen failures, damages, and defects. The aviation maintenance refers to these unplanned events as “non-routine,” and the risk they pose is that they are common but difficult to predict.

Even before heavy maintenance service is provided, there is already a complex plan that takes into account all the activities, time, and resources needed in order to finish the maintenance according to schedule and budget. Despite the detail and care that goes into these plans, there are still damages or discrepancies that may be discovered during the inspection stage, which will result in the plan needing readjustment in order to account for additional resources, time, manpower, or parts needed to accomplish the task satisfactorily.

Challenges

There are other challenges:

• A disconnect between the tasks and the resources needed to accomplish them and failure to completely assess the effects of delays and disruptions during heavy maintenance.
• Maintenance managers will always struggle when it comes to anticipating unscheduled tasks since non-routine tasks by nature are stochastic.
• The end-result is that an initial maintenance service plan could need costly adjustments, which in turn would have significant negative effects on delivery time, budgeting, and even the overall quality of the maintenance done.

Solution

Minimizing Risks and Delays Through Better Project Management: SEM.PCP

Aircraft maintenance services by nature is difficult due to the conflicting need for everything to go according to plan and schedule, while at the same time being subject to non-routine developments. The project management app Sem.PCP is the ideal tool that will help improve the efficiency of an aircraft maintenance project, while also reducing unplanned costs normally associated with delays and plan readjustments.

The truth is that regardless of how good a project manager is, the sheer number of factors involved and the randomness inherent in heavy maintenance service means that relying on manual planning and organizing will bog down the process. A project management tool like Sem.PCP will streamline the process and help a project manager run multiple concurrent heavy maintenance service activities, without being lost in the complexities and interdependencies.

Some of the features that make Sem.PCP ideal for aircraft maintenance:

• bThe software is cloud-based, so there is no need to lug around a specific device or machine. A project manager can simply use any internet-capable device and access the tool without worrying about platform, compatibilities, or even installation. First time setup and configuration will take less than 5 minutes. Access a familiar dashboard wherever you are in the world or which ever device you decided to bring along.
• Modular support that allows tailoring of the software according to your industry or even based on specific projects. You can adjust your work environment whether it’s for a small project, a large scale project, or a number of different heavy maintenance tasks running in parallel.
• Sem.PCP is designed to handle multiple complex tasks, while ensuring that they can be organized and presented in a simple way. The app has a wide variety of visual-oriented presentation tools, which allow you to present data on developments and progress using graphs, charts, lists or any number of formats that can help digestion of information easier.
• The app is designed to be intuitive and easy to learn, while also containing powerful tools that allow searching of data using any pre-defined filters, or even the ability to duplicate projects easily – there is no longer any need to start a new project from scratch. Just copy an old one, and then modify it to suit the new project parameters.
• Powerful collaboration tools. Sem.PCP is built with team collaboration in mind, which makes it easy for a project manager to work with team members, co-managers, or any co-worker. Information can be freely shared while still ensuring security through the use of authorization controls. With the ability to work through the cloud, a project manager can work with collaborators even from across the world. The ability to work remotely greatly improves the flextibility of aircraft maintenance management tasks.

Benefits

Clear Benefits of Using Sem.PCP

There are a number of benefits that come with using Sem.PCP for aircraft maintenance project management. For starters, it makes the work of a manager easier. It not only reduces the stress that comes with the job, it also allows him or her to take on more work without sacrificing efficiency.

There is also the better efficiency that comes with empowering a mobile workforce. There is no longer any pressure to have everyone on site, as the software can allow certain project management tasks to be done remotely. This will greatly improve productivity, as people who would not normally work due to being at home or away from the work site will now be able to log in and check on progress.

Finally, there’s also a lot of cost benefits as Sem.PCP reduces the need for extra manpower with regard to IT administration. It also reduces the amount of commercial software needed, as Sem.PCP is part of a full suite of software tools from SEMYOU, and each one of them can seamlessly integrate with SEM.PCP when needed.

The wide berth of platform compatibility also reduces costs of hardware procurement and maintenance, as Sem.PCP can be used on existing devices and can be easily used on other devices without any time-consuming setup or migration needed.

Finally, the efficiency it brings to the work process minimizes the delays and unexpected expenses attributed to the inability to anticipate or plan for non-routine developments. Sem.PCP allows project managers to take more things into account and be better prepared for all the factors involved in heavy maintenance work.

Conclusion

SEM.PCP is easily the best addition to any aircraft maintenance business’ list of tools. It can help with management of complex interdependencies between various resources and between routine and non-routine tasks. It is specifically designed to be adaptable to the dynamic and complex behaviour of aircraft heavy maintenance, but its adoption and maintenance is straightforward and will never be disruptive to a business’ normal process.