Lucerne, Switzerland EASA Compliance Too High? The European engineering and maintenance community seems to be particularly concerned about the increasing amount of regulatory requirements with which an organization has to comply regardless of its size. This is especially true for small MRO organizations; as evidence, some are closing because they are spending half of their time documenting compliance.
Excluding retrofits or airworthiness-directive compliance, the worldwide market for overhauling Rolls-Royce Trent 700-series turbofans is projected at about $2 billion for the next three years, with Asian carriers accounting for the largest share of the work.
1. Ratchet Wrench Manufacturer: Armstrong Industrial Hand Tools Applications: The Flex Head Ratcheting Torque Wrench allows for a 10-deg. ratcheting angle, making it usable in more confined areas. Specifications: The ratcheting torque wrench is made of hardened steel with chrome plating. A locking collar prevents the scale settings from changing during work.
The Dutch defense ministry has been increasing its work with industry, as evinced by last year's public-private partnership agreement with DutchAero Services at Woensdrecht. It not only secured maintenance of the Royal Netherlands Air Force F-16's Pratt & Whitney F100 engines, but it also aimed to attract third-party customers for F100 engine MRO work as well as future work on other engine types.
1. Greener Future Manufacturer: Crane Aerospace & L-3 Applications: The GreenTaxi uses its own auxiliary power unit to provide electric power without using the aircraft's engines, resulting in up to 4% fuel savings and as much as 80% fewer CO2 emissions.
Washington The FAA's 90-day extension of the repair-station draft-rule comment period means industry has until mid-November to weigh in on what would be a sweeping rewrite of Part 145. Barring a significant about-face, however, the 70-odd comments received by the rule's original Aug. 20 comment deadline make one thing clear: Certificate holders large and small are unified in their general discontent with the agency's proposal.
Kazakhstan's national carrier Air Astana faces two big decisons: It has to select companies to complete interiors for its new Boeing 767-300ERs and provide heavy maintenance for its Airbus A320s. Air Astana usually sends its A320s to ATC Southend in the U.K. for heavy checks, but the carrier's senior VP engineering group, John Wainwright, says it is considering sending some to China for heavy checks because the maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) shops there are cheaper.
1. Fiber Optics Manufacturer: Luna Innovations Applications: Luna Innovations' Optical Distributed Sensor Interrogator (ODiSI) can be used in composite manufacturing for load, fatigue and mechanical testing. Specifications: ODiSI uses fiber-optic sensors with thousands of sensing points per fiber to more easily detect defects in composite structures. www.lunainnovations.com
What links the following statements (besides all being subjects covered in this issue)? •British Airways plans to receive its first Airbus A380 and Boeing 787 in 2013 (page MRO18). •Air France KLM Engineering & Maintenance's new engine test cell at Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport accommodates big engines such as the GE90 (page MRO32).
1. Rapid Repair Manufacturer: Lufthansa Technik Applications: Lufthansa Technik's Rapid Repair process partially automates the repair of damaged carbon composite airframe components and speeds the repair process by up to 60% as compared with manual repairs.
When it comes to technical purchasing, airlines across the spectrum are increasingly insisting upon greater flexibility in the fine print of maintenance support contracts. “Today, the customer has gotten more sophisticated when negotiating maintenance contracts,” says Brian Ovington, principal marketing manager of aviation services for GE Aviation. “There is a lot more creativity in terms of the payment structures and the length of the agreements with respect to aircraft entry and exit of the program, and other terms.”
1. Spicing It Up Manufacturer: Airbus Applications: Airbus's Space Innovative Catering Equipment (Spice) should be available for aircraft deliveries in the early 2020s. Specifications: The system includes foldable service carts and has a weight savings of 400-600 kg (881-1,322 lb.). www.airbus.com/innovation/well-being/inside/spice/ Link 610
Lack of effective communication, one of the Dirty Dozen root causes of human error in maintenance, is to blame for many of the problems that crop up in the hangar. When organizations address this topic, typically they zero in on handovers between shifts and clarity of written items in logbooks. Rarely do managers step back and consider how they are communicating through the signage posted around the workplace. It may seem a small thing, but the words on your walls matter.
When Arinc developed the Acars (aircraft communications addressing and reporting system) model in the late 1970s, the goal initially was relatively straightforward: Create a type of time stamp for aircraft taking off and returning to the hangar, says Dan Pendergast, Arinc's international division senior director.
You can't manage what you can't measure. That dictum is repeated so often, that you may tune it out. But performance metrics and key performance indicators (KPI) are a critical component to a lean MRO or Six Sigma initiative.
In the coming years, aircraft maintenance data will likely shift to cloud storage, which is simply a much more economical way of storing, sharing, managing and using data.
