Slow to Learn: Regulatory Oversight of the Safety of Outsourced Aircraft Maintenance in the USA

Quinlan, Michael; Hampson, Ian; Gregson, Sarah

doi:10.1080/14774003.2014.11667798

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…Those models will become more profitable when maintenance operations are moved from maintenance at fixed time intervals to PdM based on the actual real-time condition of aircraft. In this, governments can play a role in reconsidering regulations that specify the amount and frequency of maintenance checks, however, their response to new technologies tends to be quite slow (Quinlan, Hampson, & Gregson, 2014 (Uckun et al, 2008). Recently, new initiatives by aircraft manufacturers such as Airbus and Boeing might change this when they provide data capturing and processing.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deployment of Prognostics to Optimize Aircraft Maintenance – A Literature Review

Sprong

Jiang

Polinder

2020

JIBRM

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Historic records show that the cost of operating and supporting an aircraft may exceed the initial purchase price as much as ten times. Maintenance, repair and overhaul activities rep- resent around 10-15% of an airlines annual operational costs. Therefore, optimization of maintenance operations to minimize cost is extremely important for airlines in order to stay competitive. Prognostics, a process to predict remaining useful life of systems and/ or components suffering from aging or degradation, has been recognized as one of the revolutionary disciplines that can improve efficiency of aircraft operations and optimize aircraft maintenance. This study focuses on literature that has used prognostics to optimize aircraft maintenance and identifies research gaps for further optimization of aircraft maintenance in commercial aviation. In this paper, the origin and development of prognostics is firstly introduced. Thereafter, the state of art of aircraft maintenance is reviewed. Next, the applicability of prognostics to optimize aircraft maintenance is explained, reviewed, and potential challenges and opportunities are explored. Finally, the state-of-the-art of prognostics in aircraft maintenance is dis- cussed and research gaps are identified in perspective of the deployment of prognostics to optimize aircraft maintenance.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Deployment of Prognostics to Optimize Aircraft Maintenance – A Literature Review

Sprong

Jiang

Polinder

2020

JIBRM

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“…The well-documented American aviation experience highlights both the safety failures that can arise from outsourcing aircraft maintenance and the delayed and inadequate response of the safety regulator to these problems. It took almost two decades for the legislature to take decisive action, recognising that the effectiveness of reciprocal agreements between aviation safety regulators from different countries required careful assessment (Quinlan et al, 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For Australian regulators, it is instructive that the FAA maintained an offshore inspectorate and its activities were subject to independent audits. For example, one audit found that, contrary to assertions by the FAA, non-certified MROs were undertaking critical maintenance tasks (Quinlan et al, 2014). In contrast, CASA auditing of offshore facilities is not itself subject to external auditing, and political oversight is episodic.…”

Section: The United States Of America Cautionary Talementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the USA, safety flaws in outsourced maintenance arising from a mixture of economic pressures, disorganisation and failures in regulatory oversight were responsible for six serious incidents between 1995 and 2009, including three multiple fatality crashes (Quinlan et al, 2013). The government agency responsible for aviation safety, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), reacted slowly to stinging reports of other government agencies (like the Government Accountability Office) and legislature committees tasked with reviewing transport safety (Quinlan et al, 2014). In response, the government introduced a more rigorous oversight regime and the FAA was compelled by Congressional legislation to tighten up its regulatory and supervisory practices.…”

Section: The United States Of America Cautionary Talementioning

confidence: 99%

“…While bilateral agreements provide a mechanism for extending regulatory reach where supply chains cross national borders, reliance on similar or mutually acceptable formal standards applying to both parties and on effective oversight by each regulator is a limitation. National training, licensing and industrial relations systems can vary substantially, and there are countries where regulatory and governance structures are problematic and independent 'whistle-blowing' by unions or individuals is almost unknown (Quinlan et al, 2014). In sum, the overall approach to regulating aviation safety, and particularly maintenance offshoring, resembles the American situation prior to 2012 before corrective action was taken.…”

Section: Regulation Of Aviation Safety and Offshored Maintenance In Australiamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Supply chains, maintenance and safety in the Australian airline industry

Gregson

Hampson

Junor

et al. 2015

Journal of Industrial Relations

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This article examines potential regulatory and safety problems arising from the outsourcing and offshoring of heavy aircraft maintenance. We raise questions about the advisability of using increasingly complex supply chains in the aircraft maintenance industry where safety standards are paramount. Greater disarticulation of maintenance work makes regulatory oversight more convoluted and expensive to do thoroughly and transparently. Using a Pressure, Disorganisation and Regulatory Failure model, the article highlights how new work arrangements involving increased use of supply chains are developing more quickly than adequate airline, union and regulator responses to the safety problems engendered by those changes. In often heated industrial debates between licensed aircraft maintenance engineers (LAMEs) and airline managers about business needs and safety, we urge that more attention be paid to LAME concerns about outsourcing.

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Subcontracting, Repeat Latent Failures and Workplace Disasters

Quinlan

2023

SpringerBriefs in Applied Sciences and Technology

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Subcontracting, the subletting of work tasks creating a hierarchy of contractual relationships (especially multi-tiered subcontracting), is a centuries-old form of work organisation but has grown substantially since the mid-1970s, including Uber-type arrangements facilitated by digital surveillance and platforms and global supply chains (Nossar in The regulation and management of workplace health and safety: historical and emerging trends, 100–122, 2020). Evidence that subcontracting arrangements can exacerbate health and safety risks (including injury rates, exposures to harmful substances and worker mental wellbeing) is also not new, being extensively documented by government reports and research from the late nineteenth century (see for example Gregson and Quinlan in Labor Hist. 62:534–550, 2020; Quinlan in Int. J. Health Serv. 43:721–744, 2013; Quinlan et al. in Saf. Sci. 57:283–292, 2013)). This paper focuses on the connection between subcontracting and workplace disasters, how to understand their causation and what remedial measures can be taken to minimise such incidents. To do this, it draws on the Pressure, Disorganisation and Regulatory Failure (PDR) model (Bohle et al. in Work Stress 29:114–127, 2015) and the Ten Pathways framework for analysing death and disaster (Quinlan in Ten pathways to death and disaster: learning from fatal incidents in mines and other high hazard workplaces, Federation Press, Sydney, 2014).

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Slow to Learn: Regulatory Oversight of the Safety of Outsourced Aircraft Maintenance in the USA

Cited by 11 publications

References 14 publications

Deployment of Prognostics to Optimize Aircraft Maintenance – A Literature Review

Deployment of Prognostics to Optimize Aircraft Maintenance – A Literature Review

Supply chains, maintenance and safety in the Australian airline industry

Subcontracting, Repeat Latent Failures and Workplace Disasters

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