Every minute an aircraft is out of service for maintenance or stuck waiting for parts translates to lost revenue. According to Boston Consulting Group, flight disruptions cost large carriers from $100 million to $200 million per year (sometimes more). Maintenance Repair and Overhaul (MRO) providers and airlines are therefore under constant pressure to reduce downtime and control expenses, all whilst upholding uncompromisable safety standards.
One of the most effective ways to achieve these goals is by using cloud based aviationMRO software to optimise operations. In this article, we’ll explore several strategies (software-driven and otherwise) that drive operational excellence.
Why Does Aviation MRO Performance Need to Improve?
Through their work with airlines worldwide, Boston Consulting Group notes that maintenance performance has dropped since the start of the pandemic, illustrated by the following figures:
- Average maintenance-related delays have increased two- to threefold compared to pre-pandemic levels.
- Maintenance-related cancellations per 1,000 departures have also risen two to three times.
- Technical dispatch reliability has reduced by 50%.
- 10% to 15% less work is being done by the same number of technicians.
- Delayed arrival at maintenance stations has increased by 10% to 15%.
- Minimum equipment list (MEL) deferrals have increased: Two-day deferrals are up by 40% to 60%, one-day deferrals are up by 65% to 70%, and overdue deferrals have risen by 70% to 90%.
The top causes of this reduction in performance are parts and workforce shortages, inadequate planning systems, and multigenerational fleets (which gives rise to the need for specialist knowledge on a wider variety of aircraft). Growing demand is also a factor; maintenance windows are shrinking as schedules get busier.
With that in mind, what can airlines and MRO providers do to get performance back up to desirable levels and prepare for future demand?
5 MRO Software-Driven Strategies to Optimise Aircraft Maintenance
1. Scheduled Maintenance Optimisation
How well scheduled maintenance activities are planned has a major influence on downtime. It used to be complicated to make sure – manually – that inspections and repairs were carried out at a time that would cause the least disruption. Nowadays, aviation maintenance software greatly simplifies the processes involved.
Centralised planning and task tracking tools give planners a bird’s-eye view of the entire fleet’s maintenance requirements, calendars, and resource availability, enabling informed decisions on when and where to carry out maintenance.
With data from flight operations systems, planners can adjust and stagger maintenance schedules to prevent too many aircraft from being down at once – and to align with broader operational needs (e.g., scheduling heavy maintenance checks for off-peak seasons).
The best MRO software can automatically generate work orders for inspections and replacements as they are due, ensuring no crucial tasks get missed (whilst reducing manual admin).
Reassessing Ground Requirements
One recommendation from Boston Consulting Group is to reassess ground time requirements. Sometimes, the need to maximise flight hours leads to schedules that are too tight, making it hard to find time for the line maintenance required.
Yet this pursuit of profitability can backfire when the balance is skewed; schedules that are too tight will lead to delays, which come at a price.
Operators can analyse fleet and task data to determine which maintenance tasks are most effective in truly preventing failures; those that are adding complexity with minimal benefits can be arranged for less disruptive times.
Integrating with Workforce Management
Cloud solutions for MRO can integrate with workforce management systems. Work orders can then easily be assigned to technicians with the right skills, making scheduling even more efficient.
2. Streamlined Inventory Management
Inventory management – if not managed well – can be a real drain in terms of operational efficiency and cost. Operators must ensure that critical components are available when and where they’re needed, but excess inventory ties up capital and risks parts becoming obsolete.
Achieving the right balance is challenging, given the unpredictable nature of part failures, long lead times for specialised components, and the need to manage hundreds of thousands of parts spread across many sites.
Aviation MRO software addresses this challenge with dedicated inventory management modules that provide end-to-end visibility and control.
OASES comes with such a module. It enables automated replenishment and integrates with our Planning module, ensuring that stock management is aligned with maintenance schedules.
3. Predictive Maintenance Scheduling
With predictive maintenance, data streams from aircraft sensors are fed into analytics tools to pre-empt potential issues before they lead to failures. In contrast to traditional fixed-interval servicing, this approach tailors maintenance timing to actual condition and performance.
This means airlines and MRO teams can replace or repair parts at the optimal moment; not too early (which wastes useful life), and not too late (which risks an in-service failure).
The result is a significant reduction in unexpected breakdowns and emergency maintenance events, and increased fleet availability. Costs are also reduced, as unplanned, urgent repairs often incur higher costs.
4. Optimising Warranty Management
The complexity of warranty management presents another opportunity for optimisation.
In a busy maintenance operation, it’s easy to overlook warranty entitlements – especially when operators lack a robust system to track warranties and claims. This leads to unnecessary spending on repairs that could have been paid for by the manufacturer.
MRO software with dedicated warranty management functionality ensures this doesn’t happen. For example, OASES’ Warranty Management module lets you optimise the value of claimable warranty and automatically tracks claim status as soon as components are recorded as unserviceable.
Staff can easily monitor all warranties through an intuitive interface, with easy access to all required data – including data on vendor performance (regarding warranty claim response). More time can then be spent on analysis and optimisation instead of admin.
In summary, using MRO software for warranty management maximises recoverable costs, turning warranties into realised savings, which can add up substantially over time.
5. Streamlining Regulatory Compliance
Every maintenance action on an aircraft must be documented and performed in accordance with airworthiness directives, service bulletins, and the regulations of authorities. Keeping on top of these requirements manually is burdensome and error-prone when done manually which, of course, leads to extra admin costs.
Aircraft MRO software dramatically reduces the work involved with compliance monitoring, automatically documenting maintenance activity and storing it centrally, for easy retrieval. When reports are required, they’re just the click of a button away.
Other Strategies that Reduce Downtime and Costs
What else can airlines and MROs do to better manage demand in the face of current challenges?
Improve Maintenance Station Capacity
Many operators are investing in enhanced facilities to not just cope with today’s demands but to be ready for future increase in cargo and passenger demand.
The more repairs that can be carried out locally, the less often aircraft need to be transported to major maintenance centres, saving time and money, and speeding up return-to-service timelines.
Attracting New Employees and Retaining Existing Ones
With experienced technicians in short supply, workforce stability is now a strategic priority. Many carriers report that 15% of technicians have less than a year of experience, and 25% have less than three years; a clear sign of how urgent the need for recruitment and retention has become.
Improving onboarding processes, offering clearer career pathways, and investing in ongoing training are all crucial to developing a more resilient workforce.
Outsourcing
Outsourcing certain activities can be a powerful way to improve service levels but, as discussed by Deloitte, only when backed by robust data and a well-structured decision-making process.
Some operators use advanced analytical modelling to identify which activities to outsource. Accurate historical data and detailed planning inputs are required in order to properly assess total cost of ownership.
In Summary
Several factors are affecting the aviation industry and compounding to make maintenance processes harder to manage. These include a lack of workforce resources, growing demand, insufficient planning systems, and multigenerational fleets. It’s therefore a multifaceted challenge to reduce downtime and maintenance costs, but as we’ve outlined, there are well-proven strategies available today to tackle it.
We considered the necessity of improving station capacity and focusing on personnel-related capacity improvements. Outsourcing certain activities is also an option. We also looked at several software-driven strategies that have proven to pay off – optimising scheduling and inventory management, using predictive maintenance, improving the warranty process and automating compliance tracking.
Using these capabilities of MRO software helps maintenance departments to do more with less; to keep fleets airworthy but at a lower cost and with fewer disruptions.
OASES is a unified platform with distinct modules, each catering to different areas such as maintenance planning, inventory control, warranty management, and so on. To learn more about how it enables seamless operations, contact us today.