BSc Top up group project resources

[aleki]

Currently enrolled @kingston doing a top up degree to my already topped part 66 from a BCAR section L (oral exams, negative marking, this lot have it easy nowadays)..........anyway I digress. Any of you lot who've been through the same course happy to point me in the right direction regarding the group project please?
33 aircraft, their schedule Monday to Sunday and their locations. Project is to come up with a 10 year plan either in house maintenance or outsourcing.

Any help would be appreciated. In return if you are stuck with anything to do with helicopters give us a shout.

[No Smoking]

33 aircraft, their schedule Monday to Sunday and their locations. Project is to come up with a 10 year plan either in house maintenance or outsourcing.

I haven't been through the same course, but eh, the university of life does provide alternative routes.

A few factors are missing in the project as described above. 33 aircraft, but are they shorthaul, longhaul or mixed?
What is the daily utilisation FH/FC for each mission type?
How many bases available for in-house C-Check and heavy maintenance?

[aleki]

Thanks No Smoking. All flights are short haul around Europe, no info is given on how many bases available in Europe for in house C checks or heavy checks. The options are to either set up a MRO from scratch or outsource all the jobs. The mission is now to come up with a network diagram of how to outsource A checks to Heavy checks and what to take into account. Working on Whirly birds (helicopters) unfortunately makes this project a bit of a mission into the unknown for me but would appreciate any help. Thanks.

[No Smoking]

For the size of the fleet, owning an MRO may be ideal. At least do the A-Checks in-house.

The Check Intervals in the Approved Maintenance Schedule/Program, AMS or AMP, is a key document. Let's assume the A-Checks are due every 250FH and C-Checks every 3,000FH. Assume Daily Utilisation per aircraft is between 8FH and 10FH. So, an A-Check will become due every 25 to 30 days per aircraft. With 33 aircraft, this means roughly one aircraft down for maintenance everyday. This downtime may be eased by a higher interval, say 400FH or 500FH, but that will mean that 250FH items on the AMS/AMP will have to be addressed at assigned Line Stations with capability to perform Daily Inspections and Out-Of-Phase [OOPs] maintenance during overnight layovers.

The C-Check scenario would see each aircraft needing one approximately every year. 24 of the 33 aircraft may be reasonably expected to attain the stipulated interval. Say each C-Check takes 5days, we are looking at 24x5 = 120 days. Those days need to be booked well in advance with an outsource maintenance provider. Typically we go for the off-peak winter season, to avoid or minimise disruption to revenue operations of the airline.

[aleki]

Thanks once again No smoking. That's definitely pointed me in the right direction. Right after working out the utilization of all the aircrafts in the fleet, what do you reckon are the key objective or rather tasks in comparing the cost of in house A and C checks vs outsourcing these both checks? What I had in mind was capabilities of MRO's in the destinations these aircraft fly to, man hours per check, down time and any contingencies, logistics of parts and components etc....

[No Smoking]

MROs at the destination airports may be used for Daily Checks / Overnight Inspections since the planes resume flights after short transits or night-stops.

For the size of the fleet, in-house A-Checks will be viable and probably better cost-effective than outsourcing. Some outsourcing contracts require ferrying aircraft to off-line MRO bases, usually on Friday evenings and retrieving them from there on Sunday evenings.

On the other hand, setting up C-Check capability is capital and labour intensive. The parameters I used in my previous post do not suggest that the C-Check activity can keep an in-house base busy at that intense level all year round. Hence the suggestion to outsource to specialist 3rd-party bases.