Quality Standards in Aviation Maintenance Processes

This document provides an overview of the quality standards applicable to aviation maintenance processes. It covers the history of quality management, compliance with regulatory requirements, quality assurance, quality control, inspection, audit, aircraft documentation, defect reporting, and service/component management.

Apply Quality Standards Applicable to
Aviation Maintenance Processes
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Quality management system
Quality can be defined as a measure to calculate excellence in service or product; it must be free
from any defect due to variation. It is a perceptual and subjective element calculated using
customer expectations and satisfaction from outcome. Quality management system includes
structure, procedure and system used by organizations to manage quality standards (Juran, 1995).
History
History of quality management can be traced back to 13th century, until industrial revolution, it
followed craftsman model. Concept of quality management emerged since 19th century by
pioneers like Frederick Winslow Taylor and Henry Ford (Kloppenborg & Petrick, 2002). W.
Edwards Deming was leader of quality movement in Japan and USA. Walter A. Shewhart
developed quality control processes in production using statistical method. Joseph M. Juran
formulated quality control through cross functional management approach using quality,
planning and quality improvement.
QMS in aviation maintenance
There is rising product and process demand in aviation that leads to cost increment, which can be
controlled by implementing quality management system. According to ISO QMS in aviation
must have ability to consistently providing product that meet customer expectation and
regulatory requirements. In short it aims to provide customers with timely, safe, continual
improvement in flight procedures and efficient use of National Airspace system
(arcoaviationservices, 2018).
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Compliance with regulatory requirement
Regulatory framework aims towards successful identification of hazards, assessment and
mitigation of risk through technology. The ICAO high level safety conference highlights eight
critical element of safety management, importance of safety management, facilitating safety
management provisions, promoting safety culture and collecting feedback. Civil aviation safety
regulations 1998, Manuals of standards are federal legislations (Gališanskis, 2004), quality
manager is responsible for compliance. Below are different compliance that airline must comply
to:
 Certification and airworthiness requirements for aircraft and parts
 Airworthiness standards for sailplanes and powered sailplanes
 Airworthiness standards for aero planes in the normal, utility, acrobatic or commuter
category
 Airworthiness standards for aero planes in the transport category
 Airworthiness standards for aircraft in the primary category or intermediate category
 Airworthiness standards for rotorcraft in the normal category
 Airworthiness standards for rotorcraft in the transport category
 Airworthiness standards for manned free balloons
 Airworthiness standards for engines for very light airplanes
 Airworthiness standards for aircraft engines
 Airworthiness standards for aircraft propellers
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Quality assurance
Quality assurance maintenance helps in understanding how and why error in maintenance occurs
in aviation and facilitate in instigating remedial changes. Quality assurance includes online
submission of application and reports to CASA. Use of email is discouraged to ensure privacy
and speed. DAME newsletter is issued every month to clearly inform about developments (ac-
aviation.readthedocs.io, 2015).
Quality control
Quality control can be defined as set of measures used to ensure quality of service delivery is
maintained and developed in comparison with set benchmark. It helps in reducing or eliminating
service errors; it brings standardization in process. Tools like ISO, Six sigma help in managing
quality standards.
Inspection
Inspection involves check on both human and machine components. According to ISO 2859, it
involve testing, gauging and examining and measuring of one or more product or service
characteristics and compare the result with set standard. It helps in identification of quality
problems, provision to inform managers and its elimination.
Audit
It is a systematic review of quality management system by external or internal auditor. It is an
examination to analyze quality activities and results with planned outcomes. It helps in collecting
objective evidence to make informed decision regarding status of service being audited. It can be
done internally, externally or by independent organization. Quality audit include analysis of
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organizational structure, system, responsibilities, procedures, processes and resources to
determine the level to which audit criteria is being fulfilled.
Quality control aspect of aircraft documentation
QMS documentation is of due importance, it helps in clarifying staff role, job expectation and
performance. Level one document includes principles and approaches to quality related issues.
Level two documentation consist of procedure to manage QMS, it include minimum six
documentation, control of documents, control of records, internal audit, control of non-
conforming products, corrective and preventive actions. Level 3 documentations include detailed
illustration of work instruction that must be followed by staff to conduct operational activities.
Therefore key documents include quality policies, objective, manual, procedures and work
instructions. Quality manual is key document that include sequence of interaction and process.
Control of documents include prior approval, review of document. Each controlled document has
assigned owner for authorization and approval (Aviation supplier association, 2008).
Defect reporting
Defect report service helps people to report regarding any major defect in aircraft. CASA uses
this data to take corrective action towards any unsafe components. It is an online system that can
be accessed by anyone to review defect summary. According to Civil Aviation Regulations
1988, part 4B Defect Reporting, it is mandatory to report any defect. Routine maintenance is
done by CASA on every Thursday evening. All defects are scrutinized by authorized person and
rectification is also recorded alongside (Yazgan, 2017).
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Service/ unserviceable component management
To ensure integrity, quality control manual ensure proper availability of warehouse, required
space for task completion. Stockroom supervisor is responsible for identification, control,
segregation and maintenance of stock and their segregation into serviceable or unserviceable.
Facility manager are responsible to ensure prevention of sale of unserviceable parts; all
unserviceable and non-aviation items needs to be separated from repairable and serviceable
products in such manner to preclude delivery of non-aviation item for intend use.
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Bibliography
Ac-aviation.readthedocs.io. (2015). Quality System. Retrieved March 26, 2019, from ac-
aviation.readthedocs.io/:
https://ac-aviation.readthedocs.io/en/latest/GMM/Quality_System.html
Arcoaviationservices. (2018). ARCO aviation service. Retrieved March 25, 2019, from
arcoaviationservices.com: http://www.arcoaviationservices.com/ARCO_QA_manual.pdf
Aviation supplier association. (2008). Aviation supplier association quality system standard.
Washington: Aviation supplier association.
Charantimath. (2006). Total Quality Management. New Delhi: Dorling Kindersley Pvt Ltd.
Gališanskis, A. .. (2004). Aspects of quality evaluation in aviation maintenance. Aviation, 18-26.
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Kloppenborg, T. J., & Petrick, J. A. (2002). Managing project quality. USA: Management
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