Optimizing Throughput Across Aviation Repair Activities
NCMS Project #: 142171
Problem: Repair activities across both the commercial airline industry and the Department of Defense (DOD) are plagued by challenges that hamper their ability to repair aircraft, engines, components, and support equipment at a rate that meets fleet demand. These challenges include inadequate forecasting methodologies, non-standard work practices, undefined or misunderstood capacity constraints, and the inability to quickly identify alternate repair sources. The result is increased Work in Progress (WIP), decreased throughput, and escalating repair costs that negatively impact operational readiness.
Benefit: These optimized tools and processes, and subsequent integration, will result in better support to the flight line, increased operational readiness, significant cost savings on maintenance and sustainment, and will generate lessons learned for other Services and the commercial airline industry.
Solution/Approach: This effort will utilize NAE aircraft repair throughput issues as a surrogate to demonstrate better efficiencies that bring together collaborative tasks across the logistics, engineering, and information technology communities of practice to enable more reliable, more predictable, and more accurate decision-making. The overall objective is to develop an integrated set of tools and processes that provide a common operating picture of all repair activities across an aircraft maintenance organization to help improve overall MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul) operations and throughput.
Impact on Warfighter:
- Reduce aircraft downtime
- Decrease maintenance and sustainment costs
- Enable effective resource allocation
- Improve man-hour efficiencies
DOD Participation:
- U.S. Navy
- U.S. Marine Corps
- Naval Air Systems Command
- Commander Fleet Readiness Center
- Naval Supply Systems Command
- Defense Logistics Agency
Industry Participation:
- Andromeda Systems Incorporated (ASI)
- ESTA
- NCMS
Benefit Area(s):
- Cost savings
- Repair turn-around time
- Obsolescence management and continued maintenance capability
- Safety
- Maintenance management improvement
- Positive environmental impact
- Improved readiness
Focus Area:
- Business IT and analytics