Journal of

Journal ofManagement
ManagementResearch andand
Research Development
Development(JMRD), ISSN 2248 – 937X (Print) ISSN 2248 –
(JMRD),
9390(Online),
ISSN 2248 – Volume 1, Number 1, January - December (2011)
937X (Print) JMRD
ISSN 2248 – 9390(Online), Volume 1, Number 1
January - December (2011), pp. 27-41 © PRJ PUBLICATION
© PRJ Publication, http://www.prjpublication.com/JMRD.asp

LEAN PHILOSOPHY IN AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE

S.Kolanjiappan1, Research Scholar, Sathyabama University, Jeppiaar Nagar,
Chennai-600119
Dr. K.Maran2 Supervisor, Sathyabama University, Jeppiaar Nagar, Chennai-600119
[email protected], [email protected]

ABSTRACT

The implementation of lean philosophy in an aircraft maintenance leads to operational

excellence and the continuous improvement through the elimination of non-value-
added activities. Therefore, lean practices contribute substantially to servicing of
aircrafts and increases operational performance. Here, the prime motive is to evolve
and test several strategies to eliminate waste on the shop floor. In this research, a
systematic approach is suggested for the implementation of lean principles. This paper
describes an application of value stream mapping (VSM). Consequently, the present
and future states of value stream maps are constructed to improve the maintenance
process by identifying waste and its sources. A noticeable reduction in set-up time for
servicing and work-in-process (WIP) inventory level are demonstrated. Finally, we
conclude with a discussion of managerial implications and the future scope of
research.

Keywords: Work-in-process (WIP), Lean manufacturing, Set-up time for servicing,

Value stream map.

I. INTRODUCTION
LEAN practice was first introduced in Japanese automobile production companies.
This is also known as Toyota Production System [1]. Taiichi Ohno [2] was considered
as the father of this practice. Once confined to the automotive industry, lean principles
are becoming standard operating procedure in many industries today [3]. In addition,
it also translates ultimately into increased value to the end customer. Lean is a
principle driven and tool based philosophy that focus on eliminating waste [4] so that
all activities and steps add value to the customer. The five principles in LEAN
practice [5] are specifications of value, identification of all the steps in the value
stream, smooth flow of the system, and total concentration on perfection. Throughout
the LEAN practice, it stresses to reduce the unnecessary overhead activities and
outputs as well as wastes from the maintenance system.

After a long spell of recession, the aircraft industry has gained significant stride due to
growing domestic demands. According to the news ‘voice in America’ in the next few

1
Department of Aeronautical Engineering, Sathyabama University, Jeppiaar Nagar, Chennai-600119
2 Department of Management studies, Sri Sai Ram Institute of Management Studies, Sri Sai Ram
Engieering College, Tambaram, Chennai- 600048

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years, India expects to buy more than 300 passenger planes for its domestic airlines,
while the Indian Air Force plans to buy 126 new warplanes. Aviation analysts expect
India to spend as much as 35-billion dollars on new planes in the next 20 years. At the
same time, India is also exploring the possibility of joint ventures with foreign aircraft
companies. India is expected to emerge as the fastest growing Maintenance Repair
and Overhaul (MRO) market over the next 10 years. To set up a MRO, the
expenditure is estimated to rise from merely $440 million to $1.2 billion in 2017,
exhibiting a CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) of 11.8%,” as per September
2008 report by audit and consultancy firm Ernst and Young India Pvt. Ltd. “Further,
the Indian MRO industry is expected to have the potential to service a fleet of 1,000
commercial and 500 general aviation aircraft by 2020,” as stated by the report,
authored by Kuljith Singh, partner, and Asha Katyal, associate director at E&Y,
added. Globally, MRO is a $40 billion industry and is expected to grow at a CAGR of
5% to $55 billion by 2015, it said. In this scenario, the Indian aircraft industries have
witnessed substantial improvements in recent years.

The impact of these developments on the maintenance and repair market has thus
been deep rooted in India. In order to achieve this market share and compete with the
global counterparts, the industries necessarily need to improve their maintenance
operation while ensuring lower cost and excellent quality. In this direction, the
implementaion of lean philosopohy is highly recommended, in order to identify the
areas generating waste (in the subsequent sections, various industrial wastes have
been documented); Thus, it further facilitates the optimization of maintenance
operation with a minimal investment. Although the underlining theory works on a
broader domain, this paper will be circumscribed to the shop floor by only taking into
account the limitations of space. This research addresses the implementation of lean
philosophy on the maintenance shop floor. The prime objective is to develop different
strategies to eliminate waste by means of work-in progress (WIP), motion time, set-up
time for servicing, motion time, defects, etc. considering the economical needs of the
problem. In this research, we demonstrate how a value stream map can be integrated
to visualize a better picture of the various forms of non-value-added activities present
in the system, and, thereby, reducing the problem of waste. The following sections
illustrate a simple and systematic implementation of lean principles in a maintenance
organisation. The following sections illustrate a simple and systematic implementaion
of lean prctices in an aviation industry.
The rest of the paper is organised in the follwing manner. In secion II we discuss the
pertinent literature reviewed during this research. Section III gives brief idea about the
problem environment. An overview of lean practice is described in section IV. In
section V, we discuss a case study of an aircraft industry. Sebsequently,
implementation procedures in section VI. Section VII concluding remarks with
managerial implications

II. LITERATURE REVIEW

In recent years, a number of literatures have extensively documented the
implementation of lean philosophy into various manufacturing sectors. Houshmand
and Jamshidnezhad [6] suggested a hierarchical structure in their research to model
the design process of a lean production system, which consisted of design parameters
and process variables. They also asserted about the generic nature of this architecture.

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Cagliano [7] made a comparison of the manufacturing performance among lean, agile,
and traditional supply chains. Further, they have taken into account the supply
strategies of European manufacturing firms and concluded that lean and agile
strategies outperform other methods. Shah and Ward [8] studied the effects of three
factors such as plant size, plant age, and unionization status, on the feasibility of
implementing the key facets of lean production systems. They were able to
substantiate a strong support for the influence of plant size on lean implementation.
The results also indicate that lean implementation contributes significantly to the
operating performance of plants. Bamber and Dale [9] described the application of
lean manufacturing to a traditional aerospace manufacturing industry. However, they
revealed that a number of methods of lean production were found to be not as
effective as in the motor manufacturing sector. The main reason is the customer
demand characteristics. Haque and James-Moore [10] applied lean thinking to new
product introduction (NPI). They illustrated that concurrent engineering, so far, is
implemented to improve NPI, but there is a shortfall in improvement. Moreover, they
revealed that this shortfall could be bridged through the implementations of lean
thinking to NPI. Soderquist and Motwani [10] successfully mapped the quality
management concepts of lean production in a French automotive parts supplier
company. They outlined an integrated approach for quality, including managerial
back up, customer relationships, and operations, and, thereby, achieving a competitive
advantage for automotive manufacturers. Pavnaskary [12] proposed a classification
scheme to serve as a link between manufacturing waste and lean manufacturing tools.
The proposed scheme classifies all well-known lean manufacturing tools and metrics.
In addition, it suggests the tools and metrics that will help to meet manufacturing
problems. Detty and Yingling [13] quantified the benefits of conversion into lean
manufacturing with discrete event simulation. The simulation methodology prescribed
by them provides creditable estimates of savings in the shop floor resources while
improving time-based performance statistics. McDonald [14] applied value stream
mapping (VSM) enhanced by simulation in a manufacturing plant. He further strongly
suggested that simulation could be used to enhance the utility of VSM. VSM is
prescribed as part of the lean toolkit and has been applied in a variety of industries.

III. PROBLEM ENVIRONMENT: MAINTENANCE PROCESSES ON

AIRCRAFTS

Maintenance process of aircraft is classified as line maintenance and base

maintenance.
1) Line maintenance: Line maintenance is carried out on aircraft daily
beforeflight, in between the flight and after the last flight of the day. In this
maintenance, serviceability in all the system is checked and any rectification or
replacement of components is carriedout.
2) Base maintenance: Base maintenance is carried out on aircraft in the
Maintenance repair and overhaul (MRO) organisation based on calender life or
flying hours. In this maintenance, all the components are removed from aircraft
and base servicing is carriedout on them. After servicing, components are fitted
back on aircraft. Then system functional checks are carried out ensuring their
performances are within the specified limits. Finally, documentations are carried
out before releasing the aircrafts for flying.

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IV. LEAN PHILOSOPHIES: AN OVERVIEW

During the review of the various literatures, it is observed that researchers and
practitioners of lean manufacturing have already written in large quantities about this
philosophy. Therefore, in this paper, we present a short review of this philosophy.
Lean manufacturing is a philosophy for structuring, operating, controlling, managing,
and continuously improving industrial production systems [13]. This philosophy was
born in the UK during the Second World War [15]; but the real development was
done at the Toyota Motor Company in Japan in the 1950s and was later became as the
Toyota Production System (TPS) [16]. TPS is now a well-established philosophy in
the manufacturing world that really attempts for integrating and shortening the time
between the supplier and the customer by eliminating hidden waste. Some of the
standard tools, like VSM, production smoothing (heijunka), continuous improvement
(kaizen), 5S, single-minute die exchange, total quality management, just-in-time, etc.,
have been conceived by TPS. It is now being widely acknowledged throughout the
world that organizations involved in lean initiatives have attained significant
improvement throughout the work area [17]. In order to become lean, an organization
must implement an integrated approach from the supplier to the customer.
The goal of lean maintenance is to minimize waste in terms of non-value-added
activities, such as waiting time, motion time, set-up time, and WIP inventory, etc.
[18]. Further, waste in a maintenance environment can be defined as any redundant
application of resources that does not add value to the service, i.e., activities for which
the customer is not willing to pay. Namely, few of the maintenance wastes are over-
maintenance, WIP inventory, finished parts inventory, waiting time, inappropriate
processing, unnecessary motion, transportation, defects, etc. In addition, scrap,
unneeded items, old broken tools, and obsolete jigs and fixtures are considered as
waste [16].

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Fig.1 Generic process flow diagram in Maintenance of an aircraft

To implement lean principles in any organization, the first step is to identify the
value stream, i.e., all those activities, both value-adding and non-value-adding,
required to manufacture a product, or to provide a specific service, to a customer. The
several activities performed in any organization can be categorized into the following
three types [16]
1) Value-adding activities (VAA): These include all of the activities that the
customer acknowledges as valuable, i.e., for which customer is ready to pay. For
example, removal, and fitment of components, striping of components for servicing,
etc.
2) Non-value-adding activities (NVAA): These include all of the activities that the
customer considers as nonvaluable, either in a manufacturing system or in the service
sector. These are pure wastes and involve unnecessary actions that should be
eliminated completely. Some examples of these are waiting time, double handling,
etc.
3) Necessary but non-value-adding activities (NNVAA):
These include activities that are necessary under the current operating conditions, but
are weighted as nonvaluable by the end user, i.e., the customer. These types of

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operations are difficult to remove in the short run and, hence, should be targeted in the
long run by making major changes in the operating system. These include activities
like walking long distances to pick up goods and unpacking vendor boxes.
Research carried out at the Lean Enterprise Research Center, Cardiff, UK [19],
concluded that, for a typical physical product environment, 5% of the total activities
were value-adding activities, 60% were non-value-adding activities, and the
remaining 35 % are necessary but nonvalue adding activities. In recent times,
numerous literatures have been documented showing the implementations of VSM
[20]. In brief, VSM is a powerful tool for “seeing” a process, identifying the non-
value adding components and recreating the process as a value stream. The mapping
process employes several standard map symbols that were created for manufacturing
processes. They are usable for the maintenance operation as well. Some of the more
common symbols are shown here in Table 1. VSM can be defined as a pictorial
representation of all of the value-added and non-valueadded activities required to
produce a specific product, service, or combination of products and services to a
customer, including those in the overall supply chain, as well as those in internal
operations, and, thereby, made it easy to recognize the implementation plan.

VSM is an enterprise improvement technique to visualize an entire production

process, representing information and material flow, in order to improve the
production process by identifying waste and its sources [20]. This technique visually
maps the flow of material and information from the time that the raw material enters
into the production line, up to the dockyard as the finished product. In our case,
mapping out the activities in the aircraft maintenance shop floor with servicing time,
down time, WIP inventory, component movements, and information flow paths helps
to conceptualize the current state of the process activities, and, hence, guide us
towards the desired future state.

V. CASE STUDY

The case study considered in this research is from one of the leading aircraft
industries in Bangalore, India. The company manufactures light and micro light
aircrafts. More than 60 of the aircrafts are given to NCC for abinitio training and 15
others for various civil agencies.

It has many series of Cessna aircrafts for charter flight operations. Company has its
own maintenance organization. In the present study, maintenance organization is
selected to illustrate the proposed methodology for implementing lean concepts on
shop floor. Previously, this company implemented many development processes
however; the output achieved was not up to the level. In order to achieve the expected
result we decided to implement lean philosophy.

After intensive and meticulous study of the shop floor, it was observed that the
maintenance operation contains various forms of non-value-adding activities as
follows:

• Frequent inspection of maintenance activities increases maintenance servicing

time.
• Set-up time of components for servicing in the servicing bay always contribute
significantly to the accumulation of unserviceable components.

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• Shop floor needs a rearrangement of the servicing bay.

• More number of malfunctions observed in the system during functional
checks.

Certainly, all of these factors lead to high maintenance service time. In the existing
conditions, the average servicing time is found to be around 454 man hours and
component malfunctioning after servicing is found to be quite high.

TABLE I GENERAL SYMBOLS TO UNDERSTAND VALUE

STREAM MAPS

Supplier or customer

Shared Process box

Rework Loop

Maintenance time & Value added time

Inventory Point

Inverntory WIP Stagnation

Physical Flow

Time Box

VI. ACCOMPLISHMENT AND RESULTS

In order to implement lean principles a task group was formed with technicians
from different servicing bays. All of them have a wide knowledge and information
pertaining to each component, its servicing procedure and effective planning. The
objective of the operation was to reduce the level of non-value activities present in
any form by implementing the various tools available in the lean tool kit. Thus, it was
decided to first construct the value map in order to visualize the non-value-added
activities.
A. Creating the present state value stream map
To create the present state value stream map, relevant information is collected by
interviewing aircraft technicians on the shop floor. Table 2 summarizes the overall
activities associated with the maintenance servicing of an aircraft. Data applicable to
the servicing of aircraft, such as components removal, component servicing,
functional check, clearing aircraft for air test, and delivering to customer are noted
down. Information related to the component stripping time, assembling time for each
component, inventory storage points, inspections, rework loops, set-up time for
servicing, number of workers, and operational hours per day, are also collected, and
documented properly. To complete the value map, a time line is added at the bottom

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of the map recording the servicing time and the value-added time. Eventually, the
value stream map for the present state is created as shown in Fig. 2.
As observed from the value map, various value-added activities present in the
servicing line are identified and quantified in time, as shown in Table 3. It is found
that about 155 hours, or 36.52% out of 454 hours, were value-added activities,
compared to 299 hours or 65.85% of non value- added activities. The following sub-
sections describe a strategic and integrated approach adopted to reduce the

Maintenance
Control
CcCusto
Customer
Cu
Customer
mer

Shop Floor
Supervision

Handing
over to
customer

Maint.time
454 hrs.

Value
added time
155hrs
aforementioned non-value-added activities.
Fig.2 Current value stream map
B. Reducing production lead time
Reducing the time required for servicing of an aircraft in the maintenance operation is a
continuous improvement process. While addressing the problem at maintenance organization, the
total servicing time of aircraft for the existing conditions was first calculated. The various functions
associated with servicing time are identified separately and different practical strategies are adopted
for improvement. In general, the various functions associated with the servicing time of any
maintenance process are illustrated in Fig. 3. Further, the strategies that are adopted to reduce
servicing time are demonstrated in Fig. 4. The following sub-sections illustrate the strategies that
are implemented to reduce the servicing time.

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Maintenance Time

Maintenance process
Queue Time Before

Maintenance time

Motion time
time after
servicing
Waiting
Set up
starts

time
Fig.3.Components of servicing time

TABLE 2 A COMMON SEQUENCE OF OPERATIONS PERFORMED ON THE MAINTENANCE

HANGAR SHOP FLOOR.

State Operation Sequence Equipment

Number
1. Aircraft Induction for Maintenance
2. Jacking up Jacks
3. De-Panneling Mechanical &Pneumatic tools
4. Components Removal Special Tools and Jigs
5. Components Servicing Jigs and Servicing plant
6. Micrometry Check NDT equipments
7. Damaged parts replacement Tools for fitment
8. Components fitment Special tools and Wrenches
9. System Functional Check System servicing trolleys and Testers
10. Engine pull performance ground Ground testing trolleys and engine testers
11. run
Panneling & Documentation Mechanical &Pneumatic tools
12. Painting & Marking Pneumatic Painting gun
13. Preparing the aircraft for Air Test General tools and Charging trolleys
14. First Air Test
15. Snag rectification if any Required rectification tools and testers
16. Final Air Test
17. Documentation & Handing over to
Customer

C. Reducing number of induction

Lean principles aim for components after servicing to move in the servicing bay in the smallest
batch sizes possible so that works in process between processing stages can be minimized. It is
observd that a smaller batch size always results in a lower waiting time for servicing. If the waiting
time is less, non-value added time will be minimized and value added time will be increased.
However, reducing the number of components induction for servicing increases the motion time. In
our case, intensive experimenting has been performed to develop a transaction between the waiting

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time and motion time, and it is decided to reduce the number of components to one third of the
existing batch size.

D. Reducing set-up time for servicing

After a detailed study and analysis of the standard routine sheet and thorough investigation on the
shop floor, it was found that the set-up time for servicing contributes significantly to the servicing
time. The set-up time for servicing at each workstation is measured and documented as shown in
Table 5. The total set-up time of all of the work stations involved in the process is found to be
approximately 51 hours. In order to reduce the total set-up time, various strategies such as problem
identification, data documentation, motion and time study, improvements made, operation sheet
review and continuous monitoring are adopted
Initiatives taken:
• Standard routine sheet is prepared.
• Storage area for ground equipments such as lifting jacks, jigs, servicing trolleys, tool crib,
testers and fixtures is rearranged to facilitate quicker movement
• Jigs and fixtures are redesigned to facilitate better functioning.
• Stringent monitoring is done and improvement opportunities are addressed in time.
• Wherever possible, manual operations are mechanized; for example, lightweight attachments
are developed to handle the heavy set ups eventually, after implementing the above steps,
the total set-up time is reduced to 36 hours, as shown in Table 5.

E.Other improvements through lean initiatives

Other improvements noted after implementing lean principles include:

• In a major re-arrangement of the shop floor, the filter-servicing bay is directly integrated
with the main servicing hangar and thus, a huge saving is made possible, both in terms of
motion and in terms of time. The average travel distance is reduced from 20m to 5m.The
proposed shop layout promises a 24% reduction in the shop floor area, thus, it both saves
land space and enhances future scope for extension.

TABLE 3 CURRENT STATE OF VALUE STREAM ANALYSIS REPORT

Activity Time in Hours Value added.

Aircraft acceptance check during induction 30 No
Testing and inspection 30 No
Jacking up 35 Yes
Component removal 35 Yes
Moving components to servicing bay 4 No
Setting up the components for servicing 4 No
Servicing the components 48 Yes
Testing component serviceability 14 No
Painting and marking of the components 4 No
Completing servicing documents 4 No
Moving the component to fit in the aircraft 4 No
Paint removal and micrometry inspection on aircraft structure 40 No

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Replacement and repairing of the structure 35 Yes

Component fitment 50 No
System serviceability check by functional check 42 No
Preparing the aircraft for first Air Test 25 No
Rectification of snag after Air Test 25 No
Painting and marking of the aircraft 15 No
Final Air test 08 No
Handing over aircraft to customer 02 Yes

F. Creating the future state value map

Finally, the future state value stream map is created as shown in Fig. 5, which reported a
considerable depletion in non-value-added time. A drastic reduction in WIP inventory is also
observed. Furthermore, the servicing time is reduced to 390 hours as illustrated in Fig. 5. Table. 4
outlines the value stream analysis report for the future state. It is found that about 136 hours, or
34.48% out of 390 hours, were value added activities compared to 254 hours or 65.12% of non-
value-added activities. Comparing the value maps, it can be concluded that a 45-hours reduction in
non-value-added activities is achieved. Figure 6 depicts the various benefits made after the
implementation of lean strategies.

Reducing Maintenance time

Reduce Inspection time Reduce Reduce waiting time

transportation time

Reduce number of Standardize work

induction

Reduce set-up time for Reduce servicing time

Keep all supporting
Servicing
equipments near to servicing
point

Reduce number of induction Single unit servicing

Reduce internal set-up Use suitable servicing

time for servicing trolleys & testers

Multi function Rearrange servicing bay lay

worker out

Fig.4. Schematic diagram for servicing time reduction

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TABLE 4 FUTURE STATE VALUE STREAM ANALYSIS REPORT

Activity Time in Hours Value added.

Aircraft acceptance check during induction 25 No
Testing and inspection 27 No
Jacking up 30 Yes
Component removal 30 Yes
Moving components to servicing bay 4 No

Setting up the components for servicing 4 No

Servicing the components 42 Yes
Testing component serviceability 10 No
Painting and marking of the components 3 No
Completing servicing documents 3 No

Moving the component to fit in the aircraft 3 No

Paint removal and micrometry inspection on aircraft 28 No
structure
Replacement and repairing of the structure 32 Yes
Component fitment 40 No
System serviceability check by functional check 38 No
Preparing the aircraft for first Air Test 23 No

Rectification of snag after Air Test 23 No

Painting and marking of the aircraft 15 No
Final Air test 08 No
Handing over aircraft to customer 02 Yes

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Maintenance
Control
Customer Customer

Shop Floor
Supervision

Reduced set-
Reduced up time for
rework time servicing

Handing
over to
customer

Maint. Time
390 hrs.

Value added
Fig.5. Future value stream map time 136 hrs.

TABLE. 5 SET-UP TIME BEFORE AND AFTER IMPROVEMENT

State Work Station Set-up time Set-up time (Hrs.) after

Number (Hrs.)before improvements
improvements
1. W-1 05 03
2. W-2 03 03
3. W-3 07 05
4. W-4 04 03
5. W-5 06 05
6. W-6 04 02
7. W-7 04 02
8. W-8 08 06
9. W-9 06 05
10. W-10 04 02
Total set-up time 51Hrs. 36Hrs.

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Fig.6 Percentage improvement in various non-value added activities

1. % Reduction in set-up time for servicing

2. % Reduction in cycle time
3. % Reduction in man power
4. % Reduction in maintenance cost
5. % Reduction in WIP
6. % Reduction in shop floor area
7. % Improvement in number of aircrafts serviced

VII. CONCLUDING REMARKS WITH MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS

This research carries evidence of genuine advantages when applying lean principles to the
aircraft-servicing shop floor. Due to increased quality, servicing expected by the customer and
fierce global competition, the Indian aircraft maintenance organizations are desperately trying to
improve effective servicing at lower cost and retain excellent service quality. Under these
circumstances, the authors have implemented lean philosophy to improve the servicing environment
with moderate investment. In this paper, the effectiveness of lean principles is demonstrated in a
systematic manner with the help of lean tool, such as value stream maps.
However, the complete success of the application of lean philosophy in the long run depends on
close cooperation between the shop floor personnel and the management. Senior management
should use metrics to hold people accountable. Instilling proper organizational values, employee
empowerment systems, continuous improvement programs, and setting up a consistent organization
structure, as well as installing effective management information systems are essential. If these
management principles are not fully adopted in conjunction with the factory floor principles, the
lean system will not achieve the benefits quantified in this study.

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