Cost-efficient maintenance through optimised planning & procurement

CSI Business Consulting-plane engine maintenance 1

Cost-efficient maintenance through optimised planning & procurement - Aviation

Context

This airline has an extensive fleet of Boeing 737 NG & MAX aircraft that need scheduled & unscheduled maintenance on a daily basis. Having efficient maintenance is a complex puzzle for which many pieces need to fall into place: timing, location, manpower, skills, supplies & tools.

CSI Business Consulting-plane engine inspection

Our Mission

Develop and embed Lean insights and tools to make the planning & procurement process for line maintenance more efficient.

Results

7 digit (€) annual recurring cost savings via improved staff capacity management, better maintenance timing (yield), optimised inventory levels and a finetuned network footprint
50% reduction of time that airplanes are out of service due to missing components, tools or manpower
>10.000 manhours of technicians moved from non-value added to value-added activities (e.g. via reduced admin work & movement from/to hangar)
The department continues on its own now to further improve the operations using the newly acquired tools and skills

CSI Business Consulting-men reviewing maintenance plans

Approach

The planning & procurement processes run across 8 different departments in multiple locations. A cornerstone of CSI’s approach was to create visibility across the different teams and challenge existing norms by showing people to look at it with a set of ‘Lean’ glasses.
Due to the size of the processes and scope, a set of focus areas were defined early on together with the client. Each topic was tackled in the classical 3 phases ; (1) Diagnostic – What are the issues and root causes?, (2) Design - How can we do it better? and (3) Implementation (Let’s fix this!).
Emphasis was on involving employees, leveraging their experience and creativity and ensuring buy-in.

CSI Business Consulting-Aviation: planes parked

Main challenges

COVID was putting a lot of pressure on the business and hence also on the project. Physical presence and having time to dedicate to the project while a lot of day-to-day issues had to be addressed, was challenging but good solutions were found ensuring steady progress.
Having many stakeholders in a process complicated clear ownership of individual tasks and required defining and maintaining clear roles and responsibilities.