Consolidated Maintnenance

[groundpounder]

Now that the new consolidated maintenance program has had a chance to get up to speed, I'm curious how our members feel about it.

Whats good

Whats bad

How can we improve

[SJFedor]

I was a member of PAWG before the official "Consolidated Maint. Program" went into effect, but it essentially was for PA, NJ, and other wings in NER. We all brought our birds to the same place in South Jersey, except for either very minor things or things where the plane couldn't be flown to VAY to get the mx it needed.

I liked it because you were always working with the same guys, you knew about how fast they worked, and they were very kind and courteous. You also knew that (historically) they were doing a quality job, and weren't extorting money out of CAP for it. Their rates were very reasonable.

I didn't like it because (and this was 2 years ago, mind you) at times you'd get a severe bottleneck. Everyone was bringing their planes to get the 100hr inspections done, which caused a backlog of aircraft. When there wasn't a backlog, you could spin the plane in less than a week, if there was, it may be there for 2 weeks to upward of a month, depending on how busy they were. These guys had other customers, too, and had to balance us with them to keep their business going.

For what it is, it's a decent program. It's designed so we're getting the most bang for our buck, from people we trust and do good, quality work. Only problem is, we can very easily inundate a mx facility with our needs. 1-2 mx facilites per wing would be about appropriate. Having 4+ wings dump into 1 is a lot of trouble, and, I think, could cause problems, especially if the mx facility feels rushed to push the planes back out the door.

[SoCalCAPOfficer]

I dont think it is such a good idea, because it hurts not only the squadron in getting its airplane back quicker, it also hurts the local FBO's.   Our FBO has been very good to CAP, they have given us good service, free tiedown, bought parts and waited till national could pay them back, etc.   It is a slap in the face to them to say, you can do the minor things but anything where you might make a buck will have to go to someone else.  My Aircraft Maintenance Officer has written a long letter to National concerning these issues.

[BillB]

Consolidated maintenance is a good concept, but has drawbacks. As mentioned, where there is a corporate aircraft, the FBOs support CAP through free tiedowns or T-hangers, discount on parts and duel, but the local Squadron can't support the FBO with doing the maintenance. Another drawback is distance. It's almost a 3hour flight from where one corporate aircraft is based to the central maintenance facility. Besides fuel costs and time a member wastes ferrying the aircraft, that's six hours wasted from the 100 hours between maintenance checks. Larger wings need to set up two locations rather than just one, which also means faster turnaround time for the aircraft.
For minor maintenance, Squadrons should be able to pick their own local repair shop to help support the local FBO. And I see no problem with selecting two repair shops in a larger wing provided the rates compare favorably.

[ricecakecm]

My wing has been in the program since February.  Overall, I like it.

The biggest problem I've had is the NHQ parts vendor dragging their butt on getting parts to our maintenance vendor.  I had an airplane sitting for over 3 weeks waiting on a tachometer.

The costs of flying airplanes to and from the maintenance base are paid for by NHQ, as are the costs of flying a chase plane (if one is needed).  So if anything, I'm increasing my aircraft utilization on NHQ's dime.

I still take IFR certifications, tire changes, oil changes, light bulbs, etc. to local FBOs as well as unscheduled maintenance that can't be flown to the maintenance base.  So we're still supporting the local FBOs to some extent.  Most of them understand that we've got to do it this way. 

Basicly, all that goes to the central shop are 100 hour and annual inspections, engine changes, prop changes, etc.  The shop we picked doesn't have an avionics shop, so we still shop around on those problems.

[groundpounder]

My wing has been in the program since February.  Overall, I like it.

The biggest problem I've had is the NHQ parts vendor dragging their butt on getting parts to our maintenance vendor.  I had an airplane sitting for over 3 weeks waiting on a tachometer.

That seems to be a common complaint, aircraft sitting at the vendor for upwards of a month waiting for a part. Hopefully that issue is getting run up the line so we can get things moving a little faster.

If you have a problem or two during the year, then add in a 100 hour or annual, you could lose 2-3 months of flying time waiting to get your plane back

[lordmonar]

Yes...but the parts problem was there long before the consolidate maintenance program.

[Sarge]

I for one am not sold on colsolidated mx quite yet. MN Wing has a great program thanks to Lt Col Quilling. Others not as fortunate. Alot of Sq's have a good "bubble" on where to get the best,quickest and most cost-effective fixes. Others do not practice sound decision making....so I see some value in the program in some cases. Your thoughts?

[c172drv]

From a quick read it seems that the major problem is that the inspections are reactive and not planned.  In an airline situation you setup with a central vendor or vendors to do your scheduled maintenance.  We would have a line of service that would allow us to keep that line occupied with our aircraft only.  We would swap them out and continue on.  Each time an aircraft came in they already knew the work to be completed for the most part and had their parts on hand ready to go.  We were turning CRJ's in 1 week for some of the less involved heavy maintenance.  It seems that a 100hr inspection should take a day if you had the parts.   

What seems to be lacking in this program is an ability to swap aircraft (we aren't standardized enough wing to wing) and also a maintenance program that isn't time based such as our 100hr requirement.  You would plan to put the aircraft in the shop every 3 months lets say.  Each visit it would have an oil change plus 1/4 of all the maintenance it needs for an annual.  You'd obviously have items that get repeated more often.  If we went to a progressive maintenance program where you knew what was going to happen and when you could get your parts in ahead of time.  Yes, you do run across unplanned stuff but that is when you have a contract that specifies timeliness for AOG (Aircraft on Ground) parts.  This requires folks to monitor the status of aircraft and plan out the course of action. 

This centralization could also be a great relief for the squadron and wing maintenance folks if we had a single number to call to report problems.  Toss on a program to use a formal Minimum Equipment List and you could quickly be able to re dispatch the aircraft with most maintenance items being differed till planned maintenance could be setup.  You then use your local FBO's for the hard items and to verify that others are safe to continue per the MEL. 

The last additional item I would add on to save money is to switch CAP to a "On Condition" program for equipment.  Engines, governors and propellers are the natural targets.  Here you continually do checks on the health of the engine.  We are doing that already with the 100hr program but you need to track the status to look for changes.  Toss on a little engine trend monitoring for aircraft that have CHT, EGT info and you could really begin to see the health.  Additional tracking of parts removal and replacement to see how long they stay on the aircraft and you begin to realize money. 

The problem with all this is that it takes money to save the money.  A centralized contact point for maintenance means you have to hire 4-6 folks to be on hand for maintenance calls.  They likely have to be mechanics too.  Setting up contract to provide AOG can be expensive though in our case it shouldn't be too bad.   The maintenance program change might be expensive unless there is one that we can access from Cessna already.  I thought that there was one but my memory isn't that good.  MEL's take time and effort to get approved by the FSDO.  I believe that we could pull this off but it would likely take a full time person about a year to get all the aircraft up on that program plus conducting training for everyone on how to use it.   The on condition program would take a major rewrite of the manuals.  It would also take some time to work with all the manufacturers to set reasoned data points for removal of a part prior to it breaking.

OK, that was a long post that I've been thinking about for a while.   I think that we could do this as an organization but it would take commitment that I'm not sure NHQ has.  Hope I didn't bore everyone.

John

[groundpounder]

Wow, thats a lot to digest.

This is the kind of positive discussion that reveals great ideas.

The MEL concept intrigues me on one hand but bothers me on the other. I recently received an email regarding the insurance industries 12 golden rules of aviation that were developed based on repeated accident statistics and trends.

Rule #4 - Never take off with a known malfunction. How does this rule reconcile with the concept of having a list of known malfunctions that you are willing to accept?

Large commercial aircraft tend to have more redundant systems which I guess would allow for more latitude when making the go / no-go decision. A C-182 has but one system for operating the flaps, spinning the gyros, making electrical power etc. I would not expect the MEL list to be all that long for CAP. Food for thought..............

One thing that really causes me concern is the length of time it takes to get the aircraft into the shop, get the parts, and get it back in service. Wings with a lot of planes can swap in loaners so operational units can stay in business. If your Wing is already short, a 4 week 100 hour can really hurt a unit with only one plane.

It would seem that the larger consolidated facilities should at least have an inventory of the most active replacement parts on hand or NHQ should have a process in place to quickly provide those parts.

I like the consolidated squawk reporting idea. Perhaps at least a Wing wide system like WIMRS that allows folks to enter squawks which would be available to  Maintenance Officers, Commanders etc. to monitor trends and spot safety issues.

[SJFedor]

I like the consolidated squawk reporting idea. Perhaps at least a Wing wide system like WIMRS that allows folks to enter squawks which would be available to  Maintenance Officers, Commanders etc. to monitor trends and spot safety issues.

Any of the wings that use the Flight Scheduler Pro system? TN does (at least my Group and Group 2 does) and it has time usage tracking, mx tracking, and squawk reporting and reconciliation on there. The only trick is to get the people to remember to enter their tach and hobbs time whenever they close their flight tickets, and to have the mx officers keep the current dates and times of required inspections/mx.

[c172drv]

As far as applying a MEL to a C-182 it is feasible.  Yes, we have lots of redundancy on most systems but not all.  In our case we would likely have an MEL that allows you to operate the AC but at a reduced capability.

For example, we know that the NAV lights aren't required for day but for night.  The MEL can say that the aircraft is approved for DAY VMC conditions.  Similarly if a radio is out the limitation could be DAY VMC or DAY and NIGHT VMC.  Other items that aren't required such as EGT's and the DF Gear could be listed.  The additional beauty is that you specify the time to be fixed.  This gives you time to get the part in place prior to the date it must be repaired.

The centralized maintenance does in my opinion require centralized squawks.  Virginia uses flight schedule pro as well.  Squawks and other similar maintenance items can be tracked for any wing via the WMU website.  It pulls the data for all the aircraft assigned to a wing.  It can be used to track squawks plus time limitation.  Pete has programed in the requirements of the maintenance program too.  I'm currently using both for my assigned aircraft.  It is double the work but I like Pete's system but everyone uses flight schedule pro so I list it there too.  One of the things I've been doing is I update squawks to include when a repair will be made if it isn't going to be made right away.

I hope that this idea of mine floats up some but I unfortunately doubt it will unless I write up a big formal report.  Unfortunately I'm laptopless so I can't use the time I have when I'm out flying for the real job to do that. 

John

[BlueLakes1]

For us, the CMMP was a godsend. We also were one of the first wings to transition in February, and it couldn't have happened at a better time for us, as our maintenance budget was gone, and I had a plane that was 10 hours out from a 100 hour that I was going to have to ground because we couldn't pay for the maintenance.

Pluses for us - we contracted with a maintenance facility that had never really done business with us before. Getting a new set of eyes on the planes was invaluable; 3 of our 4 172s ended up having their first 100 hour/annual take a month or better, correcting old issues that had never been dealt with (one plane had to be re-rigged, and had 2 ADs, one from 1987, that had never been complied with). I feel like we get the best customer service possible; where we'd have 2 or 3 day downtimes with local maintenance waiting on oil changes, they'll get them in on one day notice and do them while you wait. We have an extremely active CD program, and we'd have planes go in at 8 am, get the oil changed, and then immediately fly their mission. Towards the end of the season, we had 5 planes go in for 100 hour/annual, and really did not notice any bottleneck. We've also had a couple instances of airplanes having issues off site, and he's flown himself there to do the repair, if possible. Now, I certainly can't claim that all vendors will be this helpful, so YMMV, but our experience has been great.

I do believe we had an issue or two with parts delivery times, but as stated, this wasn't a vendor issue but an NHQ one. That being said, we've worked with two different contract administrators at NHQ, and have had very good experiences with both.

Now, in Indiana, we track all the planes maintenance times at the wing, and we don't use WMU at all. We stole adopted a system from KYWG, using a master maintenance spreadsheet (excel form), to track all the maintenance items on the planes. The FROs are given an excel based CAPF 99, they collect ending Hobbs and tach times after sorties and the spreadsheet will email the times to me and my maintenance officer. We put them in the tracking sheet, and voila, it tells us how much longer until the plane is up for all time based maintenance items. With that, we can stay in conact with the shop and let them know when maintenance items are coming up, and we're very rarely blindsided with unexpected maintenance, save for actual equipment malfunctions.

That's about all I can think of for now. We've been very pleased, our flight hours are up (500 more hours flown in FY07 over FY06), maintenance downtimes are down, and are planes are in better shape then they were before. Now, I can see where a wing with a very strong maintenance program in place already wouldn't benefit nearly as much, but for us, it's been excellent.

If anyone would like to talk to me offline to get more on what we're doing, feel free to PM or email me.

[FW]

Update:

The "CMX" program is now covering almost 85% of our aircraft.  NHQ. expects all of our fleet to be included by the end end of FY 09 (30 Sep).

This year, the program has not only set uniform maint. standards thougout the whole country, it has saved us over $1 MILLION this year.  Money we can now use for other important programs; like maintaining our VAN's and SUV's.

Larry Kauffman, Fleet Director and origniator of the CMX, has said we will probably save even more per year after the all the aircraft are on the program.  :clap:

[PHall]

Update:

The "CMX" program is now covering almost 85% of our aircraft.  NHQ. expects all of our fleet to be included by the end end of FY 09 (30 Sep).

This year, the program has not only set uniform maint. standards thougout the whole country, it has saved us over $1 MILLION this year.  Money we can now use for other important programs; like maintaining our VAN's and SUV's.Larry Kauffman, Fleet Director and origniator of the CMX, has said we will probably save even more per year after the all the aircraft are on the program.  :clap:

I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. Vehicles are just not sexy enough.

[FW]

^ Money for vehicle maint. has already been added to 08 budget and is approved as new line item - Minor Vehicle Maint.   Details are already being finished.  Life does have some good moments.

[jeders]

Update:

The "CMX" program is now covering almost 85% of our aircraft.  NHQ. expects all of our fleet to be included by the end end of FY 09 (30 Sep).

This year, the program has not only set uniform maint. standards thougout the whole country, it has saved us over $1 MILLION this year.  Money we can now use for other important programs; like maintaining our VAN's and SUV's.Larry Kauffman, Fleet Director and origniator of the CMX, has said we will probably save even more per year after the all the aircraft are on the program.  :clap:

I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. Vehicles are just not sexy enough.

I guess we need to start driving Ferraris and Porches. 

[SAR-EMT1]

Nah... their offroad capabilities suck.   

[lordmonar]

^ Money for vehicle maint. has already been added to 08 budget and is approved as new line item - Minor Vehicle Maint.   Details are already being finished.  Life does have some good moments.

It is already a done deal.  My wing CC E-mailed us directions on how we are supposed to get minor and routine maintence done on our vehicle and charge wing for it.

[SoCalCAPOfficer]

For those of you that think Consolidated Maintenance saves money, I hate to burst your bubble but they cost more money.   A member of my squadron did an analysis of those Wings currently doing Consolidated Maintenance.  The problem is in the fact that it takes six sorties to deliver and pick up an aircraft from the consolidated maintenance facility.

The records for 2008 show that of those Wings using consolidated maintenance, the flying time for thier aircraft is as follows:

A1 Missions  1491.7 Hours
A2 Missions      50.8 Hours
A3 Missions    990.0 Hours
Total for All A1-A3 Missions  2533.3 Hours

For A9 Missions which are maintenance flights, they flew 3151.6 hours.

In other words, they flew almost 2 1/2 times as much ferrying the aircraft for maintenance than they flew for A1 Missions.

The 17 Wings that do not have consolidated maintenance showed the following flight times for their aircraft:

A1 Missions   805.8
A2 Missions   155.0
A3 Missions 1203.1

Total A1-A3 Mission Hours  2163.9

Total A9 Hours (Maintenance)   0.0

Now you tell me where is the savings?