A Study on Factors Influencing Helicopter Maintenance Efficiency

This report investigates the factors influencing the efficiency of approved helicopter maintenance organizations. It begins with an introduction highlighting the importance of efficient maintenance in the highly regulated and safety-critical aviation industry, particularly for helicopters. The study aims to identify drawbacks, issues, and inefficiencies in maintenance operations, including those in supporting departments like logistics, planning, and quality control. The research questions focus on how effective operational management can enhance productivity and minimize waste. The literature review covers topics such as integrated maintenance systems, human factors, cost factors, and operational strategies. The methodology section outlines the research philosophy, approach, design, data collection, and analysis methods. The report emphasizes the need for continuous improvement and offers recommendations to enhance efficiency within helicopter maintenance organizations. The study underscores the critical need for efficient maintenance to ensure safety, reduce downtime, and optimize resource utilization in the aviation sector.

Running head: FACTORS INFLUENCING OF APPROVED HELICOPTER MAINTENANCE
A Study of Factors Influencing the Efficiency of an Approved Helicopter Maintenance
Organization
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1FACTORS INFLUENCING OF APPROVED HELICOPTER MAINTENANCE
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Introduction........................................................................................................2
1.1 Background of the study........................................................................................2
1.2 Research Aims and Objectives..................................................................................3
1.2.1 Aims of the study....................................................................................................3
1.2.2 Objectives of the study...........................................................................................3
1.2 Research Questions................................................................................................3
1.4 Problem Statement.....................................................................................................4
1.5 Rationale of the study................................................................................................5
Chapter 2: Literature review................................................................................................8
2.1 Introduction................................................................................................................8
2.2 Maintenance of aircraft with integrated systems:......................................................8
2.3 Ergonomics/human factors in aircraft maintenance:.................................................9
2.4 Drawback of the above approach:...........................................................................10
2.5 Researches on various surveys and questions that are raised:.................................11
2.6 Necessity of change:................................................................................................12
2.7 Factors for cost maintenance:..................................................................................14
2.8 Categories of various human factors affecting the maintenance:............................16
2.9 Operational and Functional strategy:.......................................................................18
2.10 Summary:...............................................................................................................20

2FACTORS INFLUENCING OF APPROVED HELICOPTER MAINTENANCE
Chapter 3: Research methodology.....................................................................................21
3.1 Introduction..............................................................................................................21
3.2 Method Outline........................................................................................................21
3.3 Research Philosophy................................................................................................22
3.4 Research Approach..................................................................................................22
3.5 Research Design......................................................................................................24
3.6 Data Collection and analysis process......................................................................24
3.7 Sample and Sampling Method.................................................................................25
3.8 Chapter summary.....................................................................................................25
References......................................................................................................................26
Survey questionnaire:........................................................................................................31

3FACTORS INFLUENCING OF APPROVED HELICOPTER MAINTENANCE
Chapter 1: Introduction
1.1 Background of the study
Aircraft or helicopter maintenance is one of the highly safely critical, regulated,
complicated as well as competitive industries. Thus, there is a deep requirement for developing
innovative solutions to identify process efficiency without making any compromise for safety
and quality. On the other hand, the helicopter is a modern marvel, which is often overshadowed
by big aeroplane.
As designing of the helicopter is very fragile as well as looking awkward, it is required to
research on the factors influencing the efficiency of an approved helicopter maintenance
organisation. Maintenance of aircraft is regulated mainly and safely critical. Hence, complex
industries have been facing various unprecedented challenges. The pressure has been there over
various aircraft manufacturers originating from their customers for designing aircraft. These are
done with different pushed out maintenance schedules. Wong and Brooks (2015) analyse that
customers have been moving out from the aircraft industry. Further, they have been grounded
aircraft across the world. This made them transmit to a substantial decrease in the aviation
business.
On the other hand, there are several elements helpful for developing the elements
regarding the process of aircraft development. Hence, before selling of an aircraft, it needs a
spectrum of several aspects that can be helpful to take considerations into the environmental
safety factors along with safety aspects of aviation. It is also important to go through the process
of developing as well as the phase of certification.

4FACTORS INFLUENCING OF APPROVED HELICOPTER MAINTENANCE
In addition, it is vital to ensure that passengers can reach their destinations timely.
Maintaining helicopters becomes significant as there are more people preferring air travel. There
are several routine maintenances; it is required to repair as well as annual inspection that can
create a burden on the flight. On the other hand, it is essential to develop the system that can be
helpful for the organizations to generate qualified aviation maintenance workers as it is
important to take the things granted.
1.2 Research Aims and Objectives
1.2.1 Aims of the study
The restudy aims to conduct a comprehensive study that can be helpful identifying the
issues, pits as well as downfalls plagued the maintenance operations procedure within the
organization.
1.2.2 Objectives of the study
Objectives of the study are listed as followed.
 To identify several drawbacks directly or indirectly contributes to inefficiency
during the maintenance activities of helicopter
 To find out the issues plaguing several helicopter maintenance that supports
departments like logistics, planning, component workshops, quality control and
assurance
 To provide constructive criticism, suggestions as well as recommendations for
improving efficiency as well as a platform for developing continuous
improvements

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1.2 Research Questions
The research question can be formulated as ‘How does appropriate operation
management can lead to increased productivity and minimisation of wastages?
1.4 Problem Statement
As the mechanism of the helicopter is linked to multiple moving parts working together,
it is required for frequent as well as elaborate programs of maintenance for the helicopter. The
requirement for frequent as well as elaborate maintenance programs for the helicopter is greater
compared to an average aeroplane. Hence, maintenance activities for the helicopter are an
important issue in recent times. The maintenance aspects of helicopters include several
procedures and extended periods of downtime and wastage of resources. Moreover, aircraft
maintenance is dynamic as well as the regulated industry in characteristics. For instance, it is
important to ensure maintenance activity of the systems needs to ensure reliability, efficiency as
well as a safety system for the organization (Helmreich and Merritt 2017). The regulation of
aircraft maintenance activities is considered as a highly regulated industry where maintenance of
the activities is included. However, several issues are faced while doing maintenance of
approved helicopter maintenance organizations that are required to analyze.
In order to obtain an effective understanding of the maintenance costs related to
helicopter and owner requires considering several factors that include the base of aircraft.
Knowledge of the questions as well as answers can be enhanced whether it can be committed to
using the same facility at the time ownership period. It is also essential to be mentioned that an
aircraft requires a proper comprehension of the potential areas in a specific type of the plane.
There are different types of aircraft that will be helpful for the organization. Based on the regular
missions undertaken, it is required to make the aspects to assist in raising awareness. The issue

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like contaminated air conditioning heat exchangers is considered as one of the significant
challenges for the organization. Also, replacement of the parts is considered as a challenge for
the organization. As parts of helicopters fail from time to time, it is important for good
maintenance shops that can use a variety of work with related high rate. On the other hand, it is
required to have source several suppliers from the world that can site within a very short time. It
is also important to select maintenance home demonstrating the experience for the aircraft. It is
required to develop a relationship of trust and follow the advice. It is also important to make a
plan of the procedures that can be helpful for maintaining helicopters.
1.5 Rationale of the study
The requirement for maintenance on the helicopter is enormous. It can be compared with
the aero plane. There are various mechanical parts associated with it. On the other hand, the
manufacturer, consumers, vendors as well as airline playing a pivotal role in influencing the
operational issues are included it. Maintaining helicopters require proper planning and
continuous activity. On the other hand, helicopter remains as one of the greatest discovery of
human as it does not allow for forwarding flight, it can fly from a side to another. On the other
hand, a single spot for extending the periods of time and taking off as well as landing vertically
without having any requirement for a runway. It is also important to become an irreplaceable
asset for the types of military operations. On the other hand, the requirement for maintaining
helicopter in meant to be immense as it is compared to the aero planes. However, the
requirement for frequent preventive maintenance activity of the helicopters is found in the
Master Servicing Manual or Maintenance Planning Document (MPD). Apart from this, work is
carried out in the maintenance of production system. It is important to carry out the operation

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where engineering, planning as well as commercial quality departments. Hence, it is an issue to
study of factors influencing the efficiency of an approved helicopter maintenance organization.
The maintenance philosophy is used in designing present helicopter maintenance
program called as Maintenance Steering Group. Developing an improved system would be
helpful to address the required. Hence, the challenging aspects of the organization need to be
properly evaluated. Hence, it is important to carry out research taking the current organization's
scheme applied to the selected organization to fulfil the aims and objectives of the study for
research. It is required to continue performing intended functions optimally (Shukri et al. 2016).
The requirement for complete, comprehensive as well as enhanced maintenance plan for
helicopters is important to keep them flying safely. The activities like overseeing the process of
development of the industry need to include design and testing subsequently for the process of
manufacturing. Thus, it becomes an issue to analyze the factors responsible for influencing the
efficiency of an approved helicopter maintenance organization.
With the rapid growth of science and engineering, it becomes essential to carry out
research that will be helpful to make relations between the operations management strategies,
which can be applied to a particular organization to fulfil the aims as well as objectives. On the
other hand, looking forward to the possible solutions, it is required to increase the efficiency of
the selected enterprise. The things for maintaining helicopter need a specific amount of upkeep
to continue active performing intended for optimal functionality. Thus, the requirement of
helicopters as well as airlines, it becomes significant to keep the flying safety for the safety of
onboard as well as things are on the ground. Also, the requirement for an appropriate governing
body to oversee the complete development of the aviation industry. It is also important to include
design, develop and testing as well as manufacturing for the governing body. It is important to

8FACTORS INFLUENCING OF APPROVED HELICOPTER MAINTENANCE
develop an effective strategy that would be helpful to select a maintenance home that can
demonstrate experience in the type of aircraft. The findings can have an outcome for the process
that can be helpful to develop the approved program to maintain helicopters. However, it is
required to ensure the highest form in the process. It also includes ensuring the highest standard
as well as quality adhered to the process without compromising the aspect of the safety of the
workers. Also, it is required to develop corporate social responsibility, economically viable as
well as sustainable for contributing the overall betterment of present and future project.

9FACTORS INFLUENCING OF APPROVED HELICOPTER MAINTENANCE
Chapter 2: Literature review
2.1 Introduction
In present era, it has become unthinkable to run effective aircraft maintenance operations
without using IT systems. The necessity to use those kinds of IT systems has been most of the
time originating from specific business use. For instance, O’Connor et al. (2017) showed that
companies require going through inventory management. Hence inventory management system
or aircraft reliability is needed to be imposed. On more complex scales, Albers et al. (2017)
explain that aircraft agencies possess various distinct methods to use and require to over to
integrated maintenance and engineering tool fulfilling every requirement and needs.
2.2 Maintenance of aircraft with integrated systems:
Maintenance activities of the helicopter are essential where a single carelessness can lead
to bringing disaster. The events of maintenance for helicopters are developed by several
procedures, which can lead to the extended periods of downtime and wastage of the resources
along with time. For determining whether an aircraft integrated the system, single-purpose
system or IT system could be of competitive advantage. Henriksen and Ponte (2017) argues that
the business need to see the system as a resource of the organisation. As it treated as a resource,
one can apply various commonly used frameworks for determining whether it has been
delivering competitive advantage or not.
For examples, the models can look at the resources and then determine whether the
resource is valuable or it is rare or costly to imitate or could be exploited by the agency.
According to Van der Linden (2015) as the business needs to seek whether the IT system used

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has been under engineering or maintenance environment has been providing a competitive
advantage, there have been four primary arguments to ask to themselves.
First, it must be determined whether the IT systems have been adding value by exploiting
different opportunities or neutralising valuable threats. Next, it must be found out whether the
organization have been possessing similar IT system. As the companies never have the similar IT
system like others, they must find out whether they have been facing a cost disadvantage since it
needs to acquire same software tool. Lastly, it must be determined whether the company has
been organised for exploiting the total potential of their IT system.
2.3 Different Ergonomics/human factors in aircraft maintenance:
As any Approved Helicopter maintenance system is needed to be improved and then the
system should be understood. Understanding deep into the aircraft agency can make a notable
contribution towards prevention of accidents. One of the important accomplishments in the
"Reason Model", this is deployed to do away with workplace factors, immediate factors and
organisational factors as a systematic precursor of security measures and not to lay the blame to
the people. For instance, as demonstrated by Van der Linden (2015), various activities from
Maintenance Error Investigation and Managing Engineering Safety Health, showed that inputs to
the tasks have been vital to determine how it has been performed and there have been precise
causes towards accidents and incidents. This model has been providing a systematic analytic
framework to work back from a specific event for identifying unknown and proximal factors.
This can influence specific outcomes. The weakness of the approach has been that it has been
providing no basis to understand the precise role of the organisational factors like how they can
operate normally and what has been distinctive about their operation. These are for specific
instances, as things are not working well.

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2.4 Drawback of the above approach:
However, weakness of the approach is that it has not been providing any basis to
understand precise roles of these kinds of organizational factors. This has been regarding how
they have normally been operating and what has been distinctive about their operation in a
specific case, as the things have not been working well for them. In this way, it can be said that
the strength of the reason model has also been its weakness. Here, for instance, the reason has
been highlighting differences taking place between hindsight and different foresight. With the
help of hindsight, one can very often recognise the presence of warning signs. This, when
utilised properly can prevent the disaster. Lumpé (2016) discusses that accidents have been
appearing to the outcome of largely complex coincidences that is very rarely seen by various
people involved people regarding the way in which aircraft maintenance dealing has also been
problematic. Since less has been known regarding how systems have been operating, to deal with
human error has turned centred in various information campaigns. It has been showing the
accident and revealing individuals to reject those errors repeatedly. People included in such kind
of incident have been sent for training. Thus at the operational level, this policy of the approved
helicopter maintenance organisation has turned into "blame and train policy" from a "no blame"
one. Categorizations of errors and violation have also been bringing difficulties. This is done
through documenting analysis track task performance, surveying and interviewing people and
naturalistic observations of tasks.
2.5 Researches on various surveys and questions that are raised
Klimas (2016) found out that more than one-third of the surveyed tasks aircraft
maintenance engineering has not carried out their work according to manuals or procedures
delivered by the manufacturer or the company. It is found that under various normal states of