Planning of Non-Routine Work for Aircraft Scheduled Maintenance

Aircraft maintenance repair and overhaul (MRO) outsourcing has grown rapidly over the past few years with many airlines approaching more than 50 to 60 percent of their maintenance contracted to third-party operators. With MRO providers performing maintenance on several different airlines and aircraft types within the same hangar facilities, the standardization of maintenance practices and tasks within the MRO has become more difficult. One area of maintenance, the non-routine process, has become a central point for reducing redundancy of work tasks and maintenance cycle time. Non- routine tasks are additional maintenance needs found during aircraft maintenance checks but not included in the scheduled task requirements. A graduate class in the Aviation Technology Department at Purdue University has designed a futuristic process of the non-routine system that shows promise for reducing cycle time and improving the standardization of work. By comparing the existing non-routine processes to an innovative digital application, the total non-routine required tasks were reduced by more than 50 percent. The new system also moved critical information flow of expected non-routines forward in the process so that they begin prior to aircraft arrival, while maintaining the prevailing technician mindset in their current system and without forcing a new computer process ideology.