How would you apply the same approach to a key area of operations in your organisation, and what results would you expect?

OPERATIONS IN PRACTICE Waste reduction in airline maintenance Aircraft maintenance is important Planes have a distress- ing tendency to fall out of the sky unless they are checked, repaired and generally maintained regularly! So the overriding objective of the operations that maintain aircraft must be the quality of maintenance activities But it is not the only objective. Improving maintenance turnaround time can reduce the number of aircraft an airline needs to own, because they are not out of action for as long. Also, the more efficient the maintenance process, the more profitable is the activity and the more likely a major airline with established maintenance oper- ations can create additional revenue streams by doing maintenance for other airlines. Figure 15.5 shows the path taken by maintenance staff before and after lean analysis. The objectives of the lean analysis were to preserve, or even improve, quality levels while at the maintenance staff time and effort. The overall sequent same time improving the cost of maintaining airframes of activities was defined and allocated with structure and increasing the availability of airframes by reducing work preparation of tools, materials and equipment turnaround time Second, maintenance staff would often be waiting until The lean analysis focused on identifying waste in the the airframe became available. Yet some of the prepare maintenance process. Two findings emerged from this. First, the sequence of activities on the airframe itself was tory work and set-ups did not need to be done while the being set by the tasks identified in the technical manuals airframe was present. Therefore why not get maintenance staff to do these tasks when they would otherwise de suppliers. No one had considered all the individual activ- supplied by the engine, body, control system and other waiting before the airframe became available? The result ities together to work out a sequence that would save of these changes was a substantial improvement in cost and availability. In addition, work preparation was Start Standardized path Set-up Wait Before: Maintenance staff follow the steps as detailed in the technical documentation. The overall sequence of tasks is not optimized. Preparation work and set-ups included as part of After: The overall sequence of tasks is defined and allocated to minimize non-value-added. Preparation work and set-ups may be done ahead of time to minimize aircraft contact time Increased productivity and reduced aircraft waiting time. the task pure 155 Aircraft maintenance procedures subject to waste reduction analysis minor frustrations and barriers to their efficient working were removed Conducted in a more rigorous and routine manner and maintenance staff were more motivated because many simple but effective