Discussion by Steve Bentley CEO of Sofema Group www.sassofia.com

Forthcoming Training Notification - Managing Aircraft Lease Agreements and Maintenance Reserves - 3 Days - Bangkok, Thailand 9 am to 5 pm from November 25th to November 27th, 2019. 

Introduction

An aircraft’s Maintenance Planning Data (MPD) document provides planning information necessary for each operator to develop a customized scheduled maintenance program. However, the choice of an operator’s maintenance program is predicated on many variables, key among them is cost, technical knowledge & skill, and operational profile.

Maintenance Planning Document (MPD) Considerations 

The Maintenance Planning Document (MPD) is a generic document issued by the Type Certificate Holder (TCH). The contents of the MPD are coordinated by the Industry Steering Committee (ISC) and Maintenance Review Board (MRB) using the (Maintenance Steering Group 3 Logic) MSG 3 process of analysis and task determination).

The MPD contains hundreds of tasks it is not a customised document and contains all necessary task Information to support all variations of both Modification Status and Aircraft Configuration.

The MPD may list a task as “pre mod” or “post mod” (Depends on Aircraft Configuration).

The MPD Also contains (either as a separate section or integrated within the document) Airworthiness Limitation Items (ALI’s).

Industry Steering Committee (ISC) Role

A team composed of delegates from:

The proposed or actual operators

Manufacturers (does not “own” the process)

Regulators - typically chair the process

The activities of the ISC are to essentially follow Advisory Circular AC 121-22A , based on:

Use of ATA MSG 3 methodology to develop the scheduled maintenance program for a given aircraft systems structure and engines.

Maintenance Planning Document (MPD) – The MPD is essentially generic across a particular fleet, is issued by the aircraft manufacturer and applies to many aircraft, it is not customized and several (hundreds of) tasks are dependent for example on the aircraft modification status and its serial number.

It cannot under any circumstances be considered as a final list of tasks for a given tail number.

Aircraft Modification Status – The applicability of multiple tasks may be affected by the aircraft modification status. (The MPD may list a task as “pre mod” or “post mod”.)

To correct set the tasks we must know the mod status of the aircraft in order to know which tasks are applicable and should be carried out.

Also, the aircraft may have custom modifications embodied, which often come with their own maintenance tasks. (Via Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) controlled by Part 21 Subpart J Design organisations)

The MPD is the source document for the initial maintenance program. The Maintenance Planning Document (MPD) contains all the Maintenance Review Board (MRB) requirements, as contained in the Maintenance Review Board Report (MRBR) together with all additional mandatory scheduled maintenance requirements.

Whilst the MPD is the document required for the initial aircraft operator’s maintenance program it is by no means mandatory to comply in every case with subsequent changes to the MRBR.

In fact following the accumulation of reliability data it is quite possible for the Maintenance Program tasks to be escalated beyond the initial periodicity. Savvy Operators will use reliability data and other indicators to develop more effective planning processes which may very well include task escalation.