A Comparative Study of Managing a Project Using Traditional Management Techniques and a Critical Chain Project Management Methodology in Aircraft Maintenance Field

Abstract

Aircraft on ground or down-time for its maintenance is a clear loss in revenue for an airline operation. With never ending competition and growing operating costs of aircraft, airlines continuously need to explore opportunities to reduce the aircraft down-time in order to remain sustainable. Due to round the clock operation feature of scheduled airlines, aircraft maintenance operations are generally carried out using traditional management methodologies instead of considering it as a project. Though aircraft heavy maintenance checks consist of several major tasks that can last from few weeks to a year, the maintenance organisations do not adopt modern project management methodologies. Therefore, this paper models a heavy maintenance check of an Airbus aircraft as a typical project and adopts contemporary project management methodology to explore the possibility of reducing the downtime. To this end, a case study has been done at an aircraft maintenance company to analyse the potential of this project management method in aircraft maintenance industry.