AerFin's Head of Repairs, Mat Punter, speaks with AviTrader about the benefits and challenges of linking predictive maintenance to inventory planning for airline operators, MROs and suppliers.
Tying predictive maintenance to inventory management can have significant benefits agrees Mat Punter, Head of Repairs at AerFin. “Firstly, it allows the airline operator to schedule the maintenance in advance and have prior notice of the inventory required for the maintenance procedure. It also allows for the necessary supply chain requirements to be organised accordingly.”
In addition, Punter says it allows the supplier to proactively align the inventory in advance of the maintenance work, rather than reactively responding to component failure and possible AOG requirements – “This should also allow the supplier the opportunity to secure more cost-effective solutions.” Another expected benefit of predictive maintenance, is that catastrophic component failures will significantly decrease, thus reducing the number of high cost repairs and BER events, Punter notes. “The big challenge with predictive maintenance and inventory management is that the removal of components before a hard defect is reported currently means that there is no standard practice for the 145 workshops to follow for units that are currently serviceable and may pass CMM testing procedures. Looking to the future, the CMMs will have to evolve and develop to incorporate preventative and predictive maintenance processes, rather than the current procedures which only cover testing, found defects and standard overhauls,” Punter speaks.
Link to full article available here
