What Does an Aircraft Production Planner Do?

SofemaOnline www.sofemaonline.com looks at the Roles & Responsibilities of an Aircraft Production Support Specialist

Maintenance of aircraft fleets typically poses significant challenges with multiple, and in some ways conflicting objectives relating to the delivery of effective maintenance with the minimisation of operational costs, whilst maintaining the desired level of Safety & Service.

Production planning could be described as the ability to utilize available resources to achieve the maximum output within the available maintenance slot period.

A well run Aviation Maintenance Production Planning Department could be considered the backbone within the 145 Maintenance Repair Organisation (MRO) with many of the following tasks being directly controlled by the Aircraft Production Planning Group:

▪ Creating both Long-Term and Short-Term plans for future maintenance activities
▪ Manage the Maintenance Slots to ensure optimisation of the required aircraft maintenance and defect rectification objectives
▪ Ensure Operations stability and maintenance cost efficiency
▪ Prioritize and Co-ordinate Forward Maintenance Requirements
▪ Ensure availability of Aircraft Technical Documentation, (Aircraft Maintenance Manual (AMM) Illustrated Parts Catalogue (IPC) Structure Repair Manual (SRM)
▪ Ensure Availability of Material & Tooling together with Hangar Availability
▪ Ensure Sufficient Competent Manpower
▪ Evaluation & Preparation of Work Scopes (Work Package)
▪ Managing the Maintenance Activities Timeline to ensure Optimisation of Delivery
▪ Creating And Controlling Work Packages
▪ Using available IT Tools plus Microsoft Office (Excel & Word)
▪ Managing Information related to Service Bulletins (SB’s) / Service Letters (SL’s)
▪ Ensuring appropriate communication throughout the delivery of the Maintenance Activities
▪ Checking Completed Work Cards for completeness and following procedures to support the close out and arrange for the issue of Certificates of Release to Service (CRS)
▪ Post Activity Evaluation of Completed and Closed Maintenance Work packages to Review Opportunities for Improvement & Optimisation

What are the Particular Attributes which will be found in an Aircraft Maintenance Production Planning Specialist?

▪ To have competed processional training in an aeronautical profession or to possess equivalent knowledge through many years of professional experience
▪ Knowledge of Aviation Regulatory Requirements, In particular related to EASA Part 145 and EASA Part M
▪ Many years relevant experience within an Aircraft Maintenance Production Environment
▪ Ability to think analytically and solve problems efficiently and effectively
▪ Ability to communicate in English both orally and in writing
▪ Familiarity with Aviation Technical Documentation together with the ability to interpret the information provided to ensure appropriate outcomes
▪ Ability to construct manage and execute both short term and long term plans
▪ Familiarity with resource and material planning

www.sofemaonline.com offers EASA compliant regulatory and vocational training including Aviation Maintenance and Production Planning. For details please see the website or email online@sassofia.com