Author: neilw

Bill Peterson is a lean consultant and practitioner and creator of the workshops Lean Applied to Business Processes, Disciplines of Speed, and Lead Smarter. He began developing his approach to Lean methodology during a 26-year career with Delta’s TechOps Division. While focused primarily on operational processes, he saw firsthand that the productivity and job satisfaction of frontline workers was often constrained by the impact of processes in other areas such as HR, purchasing, engineering, and sales/marketing. This awareness put him at the forefront of one of today’s most important trends: applying Lean to business processes. He teaches in the University of Tennessee’s Department of Graduate and Executive Education.

This central tenet of operations for the U. S. Air Force Life Cycle Management Center was recently established by its Commander, Lieutenant General C.D. Moore, and it captures in just three simple words a universal goal: the need to reduce lead times and cost while ensuring the work is done right the first time. But this goal often creates tension between managers and the work force, especially when safety is at stake.

This was my dilemma as a manager in the ‘90s at an aircraft component repair shop, when my constant challenge was to get components repaired and placed back into stock better, cheaper, and faster. As I communicated this goal to my department, my technicians were adamant about one thing. They would not compromise safety or their livelihood by expediting any process.

And I couldn’t blame them. I was licensed, too—I could absolutely relate. In industries where there is a safety factor for technicians in the execution of tasks, there is a whole different dimension of danger to compromising safety and compliance. And as a manager, I would of course be held accountable for any safety or compliance issues.

But I had a process improvement initiative to implement, and I was getting nowhere. I needed to be able to define how to execute the Speed with Discipline concept in a way that satisfied my conscience and that would alleviate the technicians’ concerns.

I debated about speed versus discipline in my head over and over again, but I continued to spin my wheels until I found a way to articulate, in my own words, how to reconcile the challenge with my own supervisory responsibilities. I needed a compass to guide me for whatever hot requirement arose, be it a flavor-of-the-month request or pressures from my superiors, technicians, inspectors, auditors, or finance department.
I decided that a list of five priorities, in order of importance, would be my compass regardless of the situation.

With thinner borescopes, hard to reach is now easier to reach.

When it comes to inspecting, maintaining and repairing aircraft, borescopes have been a standard part of the AMT’s toolkit for decades. As borescope technology has advanced over the years, these instruments have become more and more useful in a widening array of aviation-related applications. The key driver behind the growing applicability of borescopes in aviation maintenance is miniaturization.

Industrial RVI (Remote Visual Inspection) has benefited from advanced camera technology, allowing for the creation of smaller and smaller video-based borescopes. As borescopes become smaller—specifically borescope insertion tubes that house the camera and illuminating LEDs—they can be inserted into ever smaller components and pathways, bringing the advantages of RVI to an increasing number of aviation maintenance and repair scenarios. Smaller diameter borescopes are allowing for more inspection points and more applications to capture images without sacrificing high resolution.

“Because the biggest limiting factor for the use of borescopes is accessibility, and as cameras and illuminating LEDs get smaller and smaller, they can be snaked into smaller and smaller areas while still delivering the required level of image quality,” says Edward Thomas, aerospace applications specialist, RF Systems Lab, Traverse City, Mich. “Twenty years ago, the smallest video-based borescopes were 6.0 mm in diameter and required fiberoptic strands for illumination. Over the years, this diameter shrank by 33 percent as 4.0mm diameter video-based borescopes were introduced, some illuminated by fiberoptics and others by ultra-small LEDs. It’s obvious that when you shrink the diameter of a borescope insertion tube, you increase the number of areas in which it will fit, thereby increasing the number of potential applications.”

One potential aviation application that may require agile viewing manipulation is the latest generation of jet engines with smaller blades and smaller access passages. To inspect these engines, a probe is necessary which is either thin enough to pass through the engine, or a probe with high-resolution, longer-range viewing capability. “The combination of high light output and advanced image processing available in GE RVI video probes provides clear inspection images in areas where previous generation products could only provide dark, grainy images unsuitable for making serviceability assessments,” says Thomas Britton, application specialist for aerospace and military markets, GE Measurement & Control, Inspection Technologies division, Skaneateles, N.Y.

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Ever since IKHANA Aircraft Services was established in 2007, the company has carved itself a pretty successful niche by providing its customers with capabilities far beyond those of your run-of-the-mill MRO facilities. In fact, IKHANA’s very creation was the result of bringing together of two rather unlikely companies.

“IKHANA Aircraft Services was formed when R.W. Martin, Inc., was combined with Total Aircraft Services, Inc., and brought under single ownership,” explained IKHANA CEO, John Zublin. “R.W. Martin was an aircraft heavy maintenance, major repair and modification facility that specialized in vintage warbird aircraft. At one time we did about 80-percent of the Hollywood movies and television shows that required vintage aircraft and aerial camera support.”

Zublin said that at one time Martin’s fleet consisted of the who’s who of warbirds including P-38s, P-51’s, F4Fs, F6Fs, F8Fs, and more. “We refurbished them all and even had to build a few of them up from the data plate,” he said.
“Total Aircraft Services was an engineering services business that specialized in supporting the development of new aircraft, completions and special missions modifications across a wide variety of airframes,” Zublin said. “They did everything from Gulfstreams to 747s and a few others I can’t talk about.”

Zublin said that even before the two companies were combined they would frequently use each other’s areas of expertise on their individual projects.

“When you build a company like IKHANA you have a couple of choices to make,” he said. “You can either choose just to be another repairer, modifier or maintainer or you can actually work to develop products that will allow you to provide a high level sustainability as a growing business.” IKHANA chose option number two.

Today, IKHANA (a Native American Indian word for “intelligent”) Aircraft Services provides a diverse array of customers with a variety and level of Design-Build-Fly capabilities that one would usually think would be available only from the major aircraft OEMs.

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In 2012 the owners of an aircraft repair facility and flight school contacted the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to request a Health Hazard Evaluation. NIOSH is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and focuses on workplace safety and health. This evaluation was requested after blood tests revealed detectable lead levels in all four of the employees and a high blood lead level in a one-year-old child who was often brought to the workplace.

Exposure to organic forms of lead causes damage mainly to the nervous system in both children and adults while exposure to inorganic lead can affect every body system and is known to cause permanent neurological damage in children. Inorganic lead in the form of lead dust can be tracked out of the workplace and into homes resulting in lead exposure to employees’ families. Good work practices can prevent employees’ exposure to both forms of lead in the workplace and minimize the potential for “take home” lead.

Lead is an exposure hazard in the aviation industry, especially to those who work around aircraft that use fuel containing an organic form of lead, tetraethyl lead, such as aviation gas (Avgas) grades 100 and 100LL. Single engine aircraft are one of the few types of vehicles that still are allowed to use leaded gasoline in the U.S. It is estimated that 95 percent of the lead in the gasoline is expelled as inorganic lead dust in the aircraft’s exhaust while the remaining five percent gets trapped in the engine oil. This dust deposits on engine parts and external surfaces of the aircraft. Mechanics working on aircraft or in facilities that use leaded Avgas are at risk for lead exposure through ingestion and inhalation of lead particles. Ingestion occurs when hands touch contaminated surfaces and are not washed before eating, allowing lead particles to enter the body on food. Inhalation of lead dust can occur if employees breathe air from exhaust plumes or if lead dust that has already settled on the ground is lifted into the air. Exposure to tetraethyl lead can occur if employees inhale Avgas fumes or get the fuel on their skin.

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Editors Note: Joy Finnegan, Editor-In-Chief

Why are some companies creative, successful, fun and interesting places to work? While are others stuck in a rut? There is no easy answer to those questions. And it doesn’t have anything to do with the type of work the company does—be they in aviation or not. Most likely you’ve all had jobs at each type of company.

Walk into one workplace and the energy is palpable. People are present, in the best sense of that word, meaning that they are tuned into what is happening and they are making things happen. They are collaborative, communicative and appreciative. Walk into the other kind of workplace and you can feel the weight of it. A client might wonder, “Does anybody here want to help me?” It’s hard to get a straight answer even when you finally find someone to ask, your ideas and comments are dismissed and you wonder how they stay in business.

One thing I have seen in the past decade covering the aviation maintenance business is that companies that stay in this business and have the most success are those that are the first kind—collaborative, communicative and appreciative. A company’s culture is crucial to having happy employees and success. Companies that have this positive culture have it from the highest levels all the way to the most junior, entry-level employee. It permeates the premises.

We all want to work for a company that is on this A-list. But when the economy is chugging slowly, and you find yourself at one of those other companies and no prospects for job-hopping to the A-list company, you have to stay put. But never fear. You can make a difference. As a manager or lead, you can have an impact on the culture, if not for the entire company, then at least for those who report directly to you.

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