MAINTENANCE PLANNING – THE HEART OF CONTINUING AIRWORTHINESS


The goal of Maintenance and Engineering (M&E) department is to deliver airworthy aircraft to the flight department in time to meet the flight schedule, with all maintenance activities completed or properly deferred. In business terms, this is what M&E department produces, an airworthy aircraft with all maintenance properly addressed. Thus, the activities of line, hangar, and shop maintenance constitute the production aspect of M&E. Maintenance planning often used interchangeably with production planning, then, is the planning of that work with the stated goals in mind. Maintenance planning is one of the important processes of continuing airworthiness management and in fact the heart of continuing airworthiness. Continuing airworthiness has been defined as all of the processes ensuring that, at any time in its operating life, the aircraft complies with the airworthiness requirements in force and is in a condition for safe operation”
Maintenance planning is responsible for ensuring the maintenance compliance of the fleet, managing the relationship between the commercial flying and the maintenance programmes. The primary objective is to ensure aircraft are safe, compliant and made available to service the flying program and meet the needs of the airline customers.
Maintenance planning unit, because of its key role in planning and scheduling, is the heart of the maintenance and engineering (M&E) department of an airline. The maintenance planning unit is primarily responsible for planning and scheduling all aircraft maintenance activities within the airline. maintenance planning unit provides comprehensive planning services to the highest standards ensuring efficient scheduling, administration, monitoring, and control of maintenance activities.
Maintenance planning unit actually has three major functions: forecasting, planning, and control. Forecasting activities include estimating maintenance workload for the existing fleet, creating business plans, and being aware of any changes in the forecast period. Planning involves scheduling upcoming maintenance and includes planning and scheduling details. The front line of maintenance planning includes dictating the ground time required to accomplish maintenance work, with the minimum disruption to the flight schedule, and playing a vital role in planning maintenance slots with all stations and third parties.
Control works the maintenance plan. The control activities begin with a meeting of all involved M & E department before the plan is finalized. Control activities continue during the performance of the maintenance work and immediately following it. This ensures compliance with the plan as closely as possible and takes action where necessary to adjust the plan as indicated by deviations and circumstances that invariably occur during real-world activities.
Maintenance planning has other schedules of work which includes issuing a daily work plan for all maintenance operations that include line maintenance checks. These checks contain all safety items; inspection inside the aircraft cabin and flight deck; service of engine oil; hydraulic oil service; crew and passenger oxygen check; inspection of brakes and tires, wing, and fuselage; and any navigation system updates, such as GPS systems. Maintenance planning also monitors all MEL, CDL, and NEF items and engine oil consumption trends. The engine oil consumption monitoring program requires an aircraft to have an oil level check done prior to daily departure.  Maintenance planning interfaces with other units of the M&E department providing and receiving aircraft maintenance and operations related data to support continuing airworthiness of the airline’s fleet.
At least a maintenance planning unit should have engineering professional or allied fields in its employ that could be given a general familiarisation training in-house or at an Approved Training Organisation (ATO) on the aircraft type being used by the airline. This is after the maintenance planners must have been trained in production planning and control in-house or at a reputable training organization. The general familiarisation course (ATA 104 Level 1) often called “Gen Fam” will ensure a maintenance planner is able to: identify safety precautions related to the airframe, it’s systems and powerplant; identify maintenance practices important to the airframe, it’s systems and powerplant; define the general layout of the aircraft’s major systems; define the general layout and characteristics of the powerplant; and identify special tooling and test equipment used with the aircraft.
Maintenance planning is the heart of an airline’s maintenance and engineering department and also continuing airworthiness management, but they are neglected.


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