Total Quality Management in Aviation Industry

TQM is management framework based on the belief that an organization can build long-term
success by having all its members, from low-level workers to its highest-ranking executives, focus on
improving quality and, thus, delivering customer satisfaction.

British Airways
British Airways is an airline in the United Kingdom, which is deeply revered for its immense fleet of
aircrafts and affordable travel rates (British Airways, n.d.). The airline’s long-term success has often
been premised on the company’s efforts to provide excellent customer services through a
continuous reduction of their ticket costs and forging meaningful partnerships and alliances to cover
the constant consumer growth.

To be the best airline in its industry, the company opted to implement TQM in 1987 after its
privatization, which included improving the efficiency of its aircraft test equipment and designing
new measures for their employee’s workshop programs to help elevate their performance.

Upon implementation, these strategies helped the company record a 23% increase in turnover,
which resulted in increasing its fleet to 33 aircrafts.

Step 1:
Prior to implementing TQM, British Airlines conducted a diagnosis of its current position to outline
its major areas of concern, which required improvement.

Step 2:
Further, the company obtained support and commitment of its managerial staff to implement TQM.

Step 3:
The third step adopted by British Airways in implementing TQM was to educate its staff on the
central principles of TQM strategies. Such step was necessary to improve the awareness of
employees regarding the anticipated changes in the company’s management, policies, procedures
and work practices.

Results Obtained
 Revamped policy and procedures
 Obtained support and commitment of employees and management
 Turnover increased by 23%
 The number of employees fell by 3.153 people
 Increased the number of passengers who used the company's services
 Passenger load factor increased from 79.1% to 81.3%
 Aircraft fleet has grown by 33 aircraft

CPM in Aviation
One of the most crucial aspects of the modern avionics industry is unquestionably the availability of
aircraft. For airlines, maintenance management is a strategic process that balances quality and
economy because it must simultaneously achieve and satisfy objectives relating to safety levels,
aircraft operating availability, on-time reliability of scheduled flights, and costs.
The overhaul tasks management method must ensure that all jobs are completed in a timely manner
and that the daily flying schedule is observed when an aircraft maintenance event occurs. Despite
being the final step in an airline operation, maintenance scheduling offers the ability to reduce costs.
The problem of maintenance scheduling is simple to understand but challenging to resolve. The
aeroplane maintenance-scheduling problem entails figuring out which aircraft should fly which
segment and when and where each aircraft should undergo various kinds of maintenance checks,
given a flight schedule with assigned aircraft.

When creating a CPM schedule, the project is first graphically represented by a network of circles,
squares, and lines or arrows that ascend to or descend from the circles or squares. The circles or
squares indicate either activities or occurrences depending on the technique utilised (the completion
of an activity). A series of activities that are dependent on one another are shown by connecting the
circles or squares with lines or arrows. In other words, one action has to be finished before the next
one may start.

A research paper (Aircraft Maintenance Planning Using Fuzzy Critical Path Analysis, Omer Atli, Cengiz
Kahraman, International Journal of Computational Intelligence Systems, Vol. 5, No. 3 June, 2012,
553-567) proposed reducing the time required for aeroplane maintenance planning and
demonstrating how to make a plan using critical path analysis in a fuzzy environment. For activity
times and Activity-on-Node (AON) representation in the fuzzy critical route technique, they used
trapezoidal fuzzy numbers (FCPM). An illustrative example was given for Aircraft Gas Turbine Engine
Repair/Overhaul Problem.

Fuzzy critical path algorithm:

Step 1. Identify activities in an aircraft maintenance planning project.
Step 2. Establish precedence relationships of all activities.
Step 3. Estimate the fuzzy activity time with respect to each activity.
Step 4. Construct the aircraft maintenance planning project network.
Step 5. Match with the start times and finish times at each node, also incorporating slack time with
respect to each activity in an aircraft maintenance planning project network.
Step 8. Find all the possible paths and calculate total slack time for these paths.
Step 9. Find the optimal fuzzy critical path.
Step 10. Find the grade of membership so that the aircraft maintenance planning project can be
completed at the scheduled time.

The study came to the conclusion that traditional precision-based/random oriented project analysis
is less likely to maintain accurate information in an ambiguous and fuzzy decision-making
environment. The fuzzy critical route can be automatically determined by decision makers by
undertaking fuzzy or nonfuzzy activity time assessments. Therefore, the only way customs can
completely improve and safeguard the aviation maintenance service is if they act together to fulfil
the needs of the market.

Zero-based budgeting in Aviation

The conventional method of budgeting begins with the amount that was spent the previous year,
then increases or decreases that amount in accordance with what we intend to accomplish
differently this year. The core premise is that whatever we spent last year will serve as the "baseline"
for what will be needed this year, and all of the expenditures that will be different this year must be
justified as part of the budgeting process. Starting with a blank piece of paper, a zero-based
approach builds the budget up based on all the activity anticipated for the following year, associating
expected costs with each anticipated activity. The zero-based approach needs more work but yields
a budget that has been carefully scrutinised at every point in time.

Polaris Aviation Solutions, which has a number of airline company clients, was the genesis of the
zero-based budgeting methodology used in the airline sector.

Start the budget process for aircraft management by taking into account every aircraft in the fleet
separately. Each aircraft has a distinct "personality," a distinct history, and a distinct calendar of
maintenance events. As a result, each aircraft will have a different set of financial needs. Use
historical data from each aircraft in the budgeting process rather than "industry standard" numbers
for an aircraft type, unless an aircraft is fresh new to the fleet.

Start with a Detailed Usage Projection:

All aviation projections, including zero-based budgeting, start with a forecast of flying hours. Make
the prediction as specific as you can, ideally include information on the average expected journey
duration, the number of legs, overnights, and a forecast of both local and international destinations.
The forecast should ideally be split down by month. Compared to Heathrow, Des Moines
International offers cheaper overnight stays!

Scheduled Maintenance is the Easiest:

According to the anticipated usage, the required maintenance schedule for each aircraft might be
stretched out throughout the course of the year. The cost of inspections or adherence to necessary
airworthiness rules should be easy to estimate. The cost of repairs that will be detected as a
consequence of inspections can be estimated using a factor based on historical experience that can
be built from historical inspection results and applied to construct the budget.

Unscheduled Maintenance is a Bit Old School:

We must still use the outdated budgeting method of up- or down-adjusting last year's actual figures
depending on the consumption projection for this year in order to predict an unknown like
unscheduled repair. Even the industry-standard maintenance figures can be used if we believe that
last year was an anomaly.

Operating Expenses Take Some Work:

We analyse historical operating expense data for the last three years for each aircraft to create rates
based on flying hours, flight legs, and R.O.N.s, as well as by local or international destination.
Working with the historical data requires some time, but it is definitely worth it. We can generate a
reliable prediction of operating costs for the following year by applying the rates we determine to
the usage projections.

Put It All Together:

Once you've put everything together, you'll have a reliable budget for each aircraft owned by your
client. You can confidently calculate the budget for your client's entire flight operations by adding up
all the planes, and even better, you can address any queries your client might have because you are
aware of the sources of all the figures.
Lean Manufacturing in Aviation
FedEx
FedEx Corporation, formerly Federal Express Corporation and later FDX Corporation, is an American
multinational conglomerate holding company focused on transportation, e-commerce and business
services based in Memphis, Tennessee. The name "FedEx" is a syllabic abbreviation of the name of
the company's original air division, Federal Express, which was used from 1973 until 2000. FedEx
today is best known for its air delivery service, FedEx Express, which was one of the first major
shipping companies to offer overnight delivery as a flagship service. Since then, FedEx also started
FedEx Ground, FedEx Office (originally known as Kinko's), FedEx Supply Chain, FedEx Freight, and
various other services across multiple subsidiaries, often meant to respond to its main competitor,
UPS. FedEx is also one of the top contractors of the US government and assists in the transport of
some United States Postal Service packages through their Air Cargo Network contract.

Implementation
During the recession of 2008, FedEx Express sought ways to reduce costs and maximize productivity.
One of these cost-saving tactics was to implement lean principles at the FedEx Express Aircraft
Maintenance facility at LAX. Before any changes were made, investigators found that employees
spent an average of 1.3–2.4 hours each day walking to retrieve parts and, in total, all employees
made 106 trips a day to retrieve expendables and consumables. Those wasted hours and trips meant
delays in aircraft repair and service times. Following the implementation of lean manufacturing
principles, FedEx Express saw a drastic cut in hours spent on parts retrieval (0.47–1.3hrs), and the
average number of trips across all employees dropped to 25. This increased productivity allowed
FedEx Express to better weather the storms of the recession.

CMM/ PCMM
Capability Maturity Model (CMM) was developed by Carnegie Mellon University’s Software
engineering institute for organization development in September 1986. CMM provided a framework
of capability stepwise evolution process which could help developers to s elect process-
improvement strategies by determining their current process maturity and identifying the most
critical issues to improve their software quality and process. It was the gradual improvement of the
management level and continuous process improvement.

Today, the ability of civil aircraft customer service has become one of the key factors of civil aircraft
manufacturers to participate in market competition. For civil aircraft industry, it is very important for
the customer service ability of civil aircraft to build mature and rational customer service system
which is suitable for national conditions and market demand of commercial service strategy.

Civil aircraft customer service should include but not limit to the following content: The maintenance
engineering support, technical publications, spare parts support, customer training, flight operation
support, engineering services, technical services, fleet monitoring, field service, fast response. For
the international famous manufactures, such as Boeing and Airbus, the customer service has formed
mature systems of customer service after years of development which enhance their
competitiveness for they always on the important position of enterprise development. But the civil
aircraft development is relatively late in our country and the customer service is still at the
exploration stage. According to the CMM maturity classification concept, the CMM is assessed to
five level by the extent to which the process is initial, basic, defined, managed, optimal.

Business Process Re-engineering

Emirates Airlines
With the growing demand for better services, Emirates airlines have invested in infrastructures and
planes that meet the requirements of various clients. While the company does this, some
information does not reach the intended potential clients who rely heavily on internet information
searches. There is a difficulty in enhancing a better flow of information about the most current
attempts of the organization to provide the infrastructure that meets the most recent needs of
clients. This is evidenced by searching for the word “the Emirates airlines”. There is a lot of
information on the complaints about the company. This information does not directly start by
addressing the most recently acquired technologies at the organization.

Many protests have been raised by customers of Emirates airlines. Some people claim that they have
lost their baggage. Others cite bad experiences with the airline cabin crew while others complain of
flight delays. Many of the people raising these complaints cite poor or relaxed management as being
the cause of the humiliating situations.

1. Through the Human Resource department, the company has decided to meet and diagnose
the actual problem. This has pointed to various factors which include:
2. The high rate of economic growth of nations surrounding the company especially the United
Arab Emirates (UAE).
3. Economic challenges associated with the global financial crisis in the recent past.
4. Many customers are likely to avoid airlines with frequent stopovers.
5. The difficulty of enhancement of a better flow of information about the most current
attempts of the organization to provide the infrastructure that meets the most recent needs
of clients.
6. Complaints of clients of the Emirates airlines who have had a bad experience with the
company.
7. Poor quality of services offered by the employees.
8. Poor methods of improving levels of clientele

Implementation
The implementation of change depends on the technology, human, and the dimensions of the
organization. It helps to eliminate the elements that do not contribute or align with the objectives of
a company. The model is about the improvements of productivity by paying attention to the whole
process. It is favourable in the short-term incremental change and in cultures that are focused on
short term success. With this option, the company will make great achievements in improving the
technology of Emirates airlines. This will help the company to meet the objective of enhancing a
better flow of information that provides the infrastructure that meets the most recent needs of
clients

The company will deliver services that correlate with the needs of the clients of Emirates airlines
with the assistance of the model. Thus, the company will meet the objectives, which include
providing better services for clients. This includes the case of stopovers whereby the company aims
to arrange for direct routes and avoid flight delays, provide customer care services, which will help
the company to satisfy customers.
The main problem with this system of change is that it is meant the short-term objectives. Emirates
airlines will not favour the system model because it is a big organization. The other problem is that
the model fits well in individual cultures that are focused on short term success. However, the
company requires long term objectives to ensure continued growth.

Agile Methodology in Aviation Sector

The "Waterfall" technique was the name given to the traditional software development
methodology because work was sent down from team to team. The creation of thorough
requirements specs would come first. Software would be created based on these specifications and
then given to testers who would confirm that it performed as specified. The Waterfall approach is
typically associated with the conventional outcome of a large IT project, which is late, over budget,
and not in line with actual user requirements.

This kind of rigid procedure led to the creation of agile software development. The Agile
methodology puts the emphasis on providing functioning software rather than specifications and
documentation, and it offers developers the flexibility to respond to changing requirements rather
than adhering to a fixed plan specified in advance. Multiple quick development cycles are
recommended by agile approaches like SCRUM as opposed to a single drawn-out, rigid procedure.
When used effectively, Agile can reduce project costs and duration while meeting more customer
needs.

Traditional airline procedures were born in the same era as Waterfall software development
techniques, just like legacy airlines. Network planning involves applications for take-off and landing
slots at the world's slot-controlled airports. The process is meticulously choreographed to revolve
around the two IATA seasons, (northern) Summer and (northern) Winter (essentially all of the
medium-to-large ones). The "80/20 rule" states that an airline will lose its slot if it is not utilised 80%
of the time during any given season. At these airports, incumbent airlines carefully preserve their
slots and use a variety of inventive strategies to hold onto them, usually by finding another airline to
"babysit" the slots.

Therefore, network expansion at a hub airport for hub carriers is a continuous process planned
across years: next year, we'll up gauge the aircraft size serving YYY and enhance frequency to XXX;
the year after that, we'll take delivery of new aircraft and begin flights to ZZZ; and so on. Although
there is some wiggle room, especially further into the future, the complexity of modern airlines
makes it difficult to change course without suffering significant consequences once the juggernaut
gets moving. The airline's Fleet and Network teams plan the airline's evolution years into the future,
corresponding to aircraft delivery timescales. One could say that low-cost airlines like easyJet and
Ryanair heavily influenced Agile's way of thinking. Usually, their planning periods are shorter. An LCC
may only need to wait one season to see results, as opposed to a network carrier who may establish
a route and allow it a few years to "come good." An LCC wouldn't be hesitant to make adjustments
during the season, but a network carrier might make changes to a route towards the end of the
season. An LCC must find homes for its new aircraft just like a network carrier, but because it is
dispersed throughout several nations and bases, it is not constrained by the lack of slots at any
particular hub airport. Historically, LCCs have had it simpler. They frequently travel to less crowded
airports therefore are less concerned about obtaining available slots. Since they specialise on short-
haul travel, customers often make their reservations nearer the departure time. They virtually
exclusively sell tickets through their own website, making it easier for them to start and stop flights
than if they had to rely on travel agencies and tour companies.

Therefore, how may network carriers—and all airlines—become more agile?

Over time, the agile way of working came to be recognised as an effective method for other areas of
a corporation as well as software development. Agile was previously defined by the consulting firm
McKinsey as "constantly sourcing interesting ideas or solutions to deploying tests fast, assessing the
findings, and iterating as quickly as can are possibilities or solutions to problems. Although McKinsey
had the marketing division in mind when they stated it, I think the definition also applies to airline
commercial planning. An agile airline would iterate frequently, discovering areas where demand is
higher or weaker than anticipated, modifying prices in different regions to test elasticity, adjusting
timetables to try different possibilities, etc.

Agile would undoubtedly disrupt the "old" method of doing things. and repeating the process week
after week. Airlines now have it simpler than in the past. For instance, a number of firms are
addressing the issue of airline profit optimization with strong analytics driven by machine learning.
One that comes to mind is QuadOptima, a company whose SaaS solution sits on top of traditional
Revenue Management systems and not only optimises revenue but also calculates how much
potential is being lost, making it simpler to determine whether a route can be made more profitable
or if it's a lost cause.While this is going on, software companies like Air Black Box enable airlines to
piece together itineraries by combining their own flights with those of unaffiliated airlines, even
LCCs. This effectively builds interlines without a conventional interline agreement and enables
airlines to quickly test out tactical or even route-by-route co-operations without process overhead or
bureaucracy. Wet-lease carriers, commonly referred to as ACMI carriers, allow airlines to deploy
additional capacity quickly if demand on a route exceeds available capacity (a situation that may not
arise anytime soon) or, conversely, if an airline's own aircraft are too large for recently decreased
demand.

The future is uncertain for ACMI carriers, but the best chance may rest with those who can assist
network airlines in downsizing, such as by allowing the use of regional jets in place of mainline
aircraft.The principles of airline strategy—maintaining a safe operation, balancing supply and
demand, and modifying fares to maximise revenue—do not have to be abandoned in order to be
agile. However, it does entail upsetting the top-down planning process and the associated timetable.
And I think that airlines who can implement that strategy with an Agile attitude stand a higher
chance of surviving.

Aviation Industry, Management by Objectives

Safety
Boost the security of civil aviation worldwide. This Strategic Objective is largely concerned with the
country’s capacity for regulatory monitoring.

Capacity and Effectiveness of Air Navigation

Expand the system's capacity and enhance its effectiveness. This Strategic Objective is largely
focused on improving the air navigation and airport infrastructure and creating new processes to
maximise the performance of the aviation system, even if it is functionally and organisationally
linked with Safety.

Security and Facilitation

Enhance the security and facilitation of international civil aviation. This Strategic Objective
acknowledges the importance connected to border security, facilitation, and aviation security.

Economic Development of Air Transport

Foster the development of a sound and economically-viable civil aviation system. This Strategic
Objective reflects the need for leadership in harmonizing the air transport framework focused on
economic policies and supporting activities.

Environmental Protection
Minimise the adverse environmental effects of civil aviation activities. This Strategic Objective
fosters in all aviation-related environmental activities and is consistent with the UN system
environmental protection policies and practices.

Benchmarking Technique in Aviation

Benchmarking is a continuous process during which services, processes and methods of operational
functions throughout several companies can be compared.

The main emphasis of benchmarking is on improving a given business operation or a process by

exploiting 'best practices,' not on 'best performance.'

Benefits
Provides realistic and achievable targets, Confirms the belief that there is a need for change,
Identification of bottlenecks and poorly performing activities, Corrective action taken leading to
improvement in operative parameter and reduction in cost and time to market.

Performance benchmarking is an integral part in the continuous improvement of an Airport’s

effectiveness. From an airport’s perspective, it links goals to the needs of customers, stakeholders
and to the airport itself. Whether an airport is looking to improve its internal operations or to
become more competitive on an industry-wide basis, understanding best practices and utilizing
them properly is essential to future prosperity and growth.

Internal management measures and benchmarking

1. Volumetric measures: These are the typical measures used throughout the industry dealing with
tonnage and operations. They can be subset into inbound-outbound, domestic-international, and
freighter-belly cargo. Reports should be structured so that data can be used to identify trends,
anomalies, and planning issues, as well as providing routine reporting data. It should be noted that
this number may also be looked at in conjunction with regional market share because of the
presence of other nearby airports.

2. Cargo revenue generation: The ability of the airport to generate revenue from cargo is important.
Realistic targets should be based on a methodology that considers tenant and user operating
conditions, value for services provided by the airport, and coverage of airport cargo operating costs.
These targets can be subset into landing fees, fuel flowage fees, leasing revenues, percentage
agreements, and other cargo-related fees.

3. Occupancy rates of cargo facilities: Recognizing that revenue generation is an important issue for
management, occupancy/vacancy rates of the facilities should be monitored on a regular basis. The
rates should be linked to overall occupancy and revenue targets that would be met as a result of
leasing.

4. Utilization of cargo facilities: Management should establish utilization ratios that reflect targeted
throughput for cargo facilities. Effective management of tenant occupancies is far more cost
effective than the development of new buildings. Monitoring cargo building throughput on a
quarterly basis will help management to identify the need for new space or opportunities to relocate
tenants on a timely basis. It will also enable management to identify underutilized facilities.

5. Availability of cargo facilities and infrastructure to meet demand: It is critical, particularly in

growth scenarios, that new infrastructure and facilities be timed to come on line, or older facilities
become available, to meet demand. This requires the establishment of development triggers and
close management of the leasing portfolio.

6. Utilization of the land envelope: The scarcest resource available to most airports is land. The
amount of unused property available for cargo development is an important aspect in measuring
present and long-term capacity.

7. Compatibility of facilities and infrastructure with tenant needs: The mere availability of cargo
facilities is not enough. Warehouses that cannot accommodate throughput, screening or storage
requirements will heighten levels of tenant dissatisfaction and in some instances will cause tenants
and users to seek other airports. The same is true if tenants cannot access ramp that they require, or
lack sufficient truck courts or truck bays.

8. Levels of tenant satisfaction: The size of the regional cargo community warrants attention to the
needs of this enormous contributor of revenue and jobs. Communications, responsiveness to tenant
operating and maintenance needs, as well as administrative effectiveness are elements of business
with which tenants and users are concerned.

9. Efficiency of landside access and egress: Cargo is inter-modal. An efficient operation must
accommodate trucking requirements to and from the airport and to and from the cargo facilities.
Many critical elements of a cargo operation are located off-airport. Time from off-airport facilities to
on-airport properties is a vital criterion as is the ability to exit the airport to the highway system and
proximate regional destinations.

10. Reported incidents of theft: While a great deal of focus is given to anti-terrorism, a major
concern for the cargo industry is theft that affects insurance premiums and can result in penalties to
parties involved in the movement of goods. Management can help control theft through effective
building planning and design, appropriate physical separations, and assigned security personnel. One
measure is the dollar value of goods lost to theft. While this is a reasonable measure it should reflect
any incident as a percent of total dollar value of airport traffic. Otherwise it can be substantially
skewed by a single incident and not reflect the effectiveness of a designed program.
External management measures and benchmarks
1. Regional Economic Impact: The total impact of the air freight business on a region is frequently
surprising and often justifies investment beyond pure financial return on investment.

2. Job generation: Part of the justification for investment in cargo operations is the number of jobs
generated by cargo. This could be a subset of Economic Impact but can stand alone.

3. Volumetric measures: These are the typical measures used throughout the industry dealing with
tonnage and operations. They can be subset into inbound-outbound, domestic-international, and
freighter-belly cargo. Reports should be structured so that data can be used to identify trends,
anomalies, and planning issues, as well as provide routine reporting data.

4. Investment in cargo facilities and operations: Cargo is typically a lower profile aspect of an
airport’s operation than the passenger business. It can however generate substantial benefits. It will
be important to be able to indicate levels of investment in cargo to put generated benefits in
context.

5. Cargo Revenues: This number can be expressed in total or as a percentage of total airport
revenues. Total revenue should include landing fees, fuel flowage fees, leasing revenues, percentage
agreements, and other cargo-related fees.

6. Total developed cargo facilities and infrastructure: Airports, particularly those considered
“gateways” are frequently compared based on their overall capacity for airside and landside cargo
operations.

7. Levels of tenant/user satisfaction: The size of the regional cargo community warrants attention to
the needs of this enormous contributor of revenue and jobs. Communications, responsiveness to
tenant operating and maintenance needs, as well as administrative effectiveness are elements of
business with which tenants and users are concerned. Tracking must lend itself to the formulation of
key issue analyses and appropriate outreach and corrective initiatives.

8. Appearance: The aesthetics and overall appearance of facilities and the cargo zones in general are
key marketing tools and for attracting new tenants or retaining existing ones.

Lean Six Sigma

Lean Six Sigma is a team-focused managerial approach that seeks to improve performance by
eliminating resource waste and defects. It combines Six Sigma methods and tools with the lean
manufacturing/lean enterprise philosophy.

Steps to implement lean six sigma:

 Define
 Measure
 Analyze
 Improve
 Control
Passenger Satisfaction
Thousands of travelers every year add their story to the overabundant complaints about long
layovers, lost luggage and delayed or canceled flights. Six Sigma’s strong focus on the customer helps
the industry make changes where they are most needed. Capturing the voice of the customer using
surveys, focus groups and interviews can give Six Sigma teams the raw data they need to identify
critical to quality (CTQ) requirements. CTQs are specific, defined requirements that must meet client
expectations.

Improved Departure Time

Six Sigma has the tools to help cut the time it takes to move passengers down the walkway and
seated on the plane. Like other processes, this one is packed with duplication, redundancy and
delays. Six Sigma teams can get a much clearer view of the process of boarding a plane by breaking it
down into sub-processes and obtaining granular detail for every step.

This finely-detailed view of the boarding process is combined with an accurate measurement of the
time it takes to complete each step. Estimations are not to be acceptable. Experienced Six Sigma
teams have learned not to depend on intuition, as estimates can be unreliable and can disrupt the
entire project.

Combining a detailed understanding of the boarding process with accurate and objective time
tracking may help airlines decrease their overall aircraft loading time.

Aircraft Maintenance
Efficient maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) operations are critical to an airline’s profitability
since grounded planes reduce an airline’s ticket revenue. The sooner crews can complete scheduled
maintenance and repairs, the sooner the planes can be filled with ticket-buying passengers.

Six Sigma can help MRO crews complete their work safely and quickly by implementing several
initiatives:

 Creating communications systems that provide real-time maintenance status across all levels
 Coordinating different levels of shop maintenance activity
 Optimizing the crew’s time on assigned tasks
 Encouraging continuous process improvement with data capture, reporting and analysis
 Optimizing tool allocations and task assignments to reduce waste

Six Sigma offers many tools to help airlines operate more safely and efficiently. If you experience a
delay at the airport, if your ticket price is high or your luggage is lost, now you can ask how Six Sigma
can help.