Managing Aircraft Maintenance Projects Successfully Research Proposal

Managing Aircraft Maintenance Projects Successfully - Research Proposal Example Regulations and common sense both mandate that each aircraft be the subject of a fully documented maintenance protocol towards ensuring the airworthiness and serviceability of the aircraft. Routine preventive maintenance, although well within the purview of common sense, is not a required part of the maintenance protocol. Within the aircraft maintenance protocol, each aircraft and the work required for its service is regarded as an individual project. The reality of aircraft maintenance project management (AMPM) is that several overlapping projects must be managed simultaneously. This presents major obstacles and difficulties for the aircraft maintenance organization in terms of resource management and utilization, budgetary constraints, priority conflicts and lead-time fulfillment. These considerations are compounded by several factors. Greater demands are being placed on aircraft as the number of passenger miles being flown trends upward over time. The number of aircraft being flown also trends upward but at a disproportionate rate. More importantly for the proposed research, the number of aviation maintenance technicians in the industry trends upward at a much lower rate, suggesting that the workload placed on maintenance technicians per capita is becoming ever greater. Air Transport Association o f America statistics for the 12-year period from 1983 to 1995 gives these increases as 187%, 70% and 27% respectively, supporting the ‘work overload’ factor of AMPM. Baron (2009) discusses at some length untoward events that can be attributed directly to the effects of fatigue experienced by aircraft maintenance personnel, and so to the project management practices of their working environments. It is important to note the finding recounted by Baron from a study conducted by Johnson et al in 2002. Based on quantitative and qualitative data, those authors discerned that in general, AMTs and AMEs working in aircraft maintenance services were