If you’re a Dash 8 operator, aircraft MRO, or lessor, this post is for you.
This is your go-to resource for the current major Dash 8 components we have available now or in the near term.
Bookmark this page as it’ll be updated often.
Do you have surplus aircraft part inventory?
This unnecessary buildup occurs when you order inventory in preparation for near term consumption.
When that consumption never occurs. Voila! Surplus inventory builds up.
Here’s the impact that this causes to your operation.
It’s not the price you pay, how business savvy you are, or how excellent your negotiation skills are. This is the MOST IMPORTANT skill you need when purchasing aircraft parts.
Your surplus aircraft material was sitting. Rotting. Wasting away on your shelves.
Slowly eating away at your operational results. Chomp. Chomp. Chomp.
Cash was being sucked down the surplus drain. And the only thing you could do was…
Price. How important is it to you? How often do you try and get the lowest price? I’m sure you’re thinking to yourself, “It’s incredibly important.” and “Every chance I get.” And that’s fair. It’s also common to ask how much something costs. Or to reduce the cost of something. We often use price and cost interchangeably. That’s a mistake.
The average Boeing 737 c-check costs $32.18 per flight hour, according to Aviation Week benchmarks.
Keep in mind; there’s a wide cost range between models. Older models are nearly double the costs at $52.82 per flight hour.
With an average annual aircraft utilization of 2,742, the math is simple.
The more often your fleet of aircraft is on the ground, the less profitable you are. It doesn't take an engineer or genius to realize this.
When your system isn't optimized it’s leaking efficiency, just like an oxygen mask with a hole. [TWEET THIS]
Dangerous.
The trick is to structure your Boeing maintenance intervals to reduce downtime and increase up-time.
How do you go about this? What you're doing might be “working” but are you optimizing the system to take advantage of your Boeing maintenance intervals?
Line and base maintenance for your fleet is a standard practice. Each airline is different so I’ll spare you the additional reading.
When your fleet of aircraft is parked for their scheduled checks you pay for man hours, parts, and lost revenue potential.
On average it costs you $15.12 per flight hour for an A check, $32.92 for a C check and $22.87 for a D check.
In a typical 24 year life cycle you will accrue 24 D checks, 67.2 C checks and 48.7 A checks.
We’ll use the C check as a base line here. A C check interval is 6,000 FHRS, that’s $197,520 for every C check, per aircraft.
When your aircraft arrives early you incur unnecessary costs for no faults found, but when it arrives too late there's a high probability for unscheduled maintenance.
Optimizing the maintenance interval ensures you’re getting the biggest bang for your buck. Increased utilization.
Your Boeing maintenance strategy is one that will continually need improvement.
We've talked about lean six sigma before.
However, the road to get there isn't always easy or straightforward. Statistical analysis is great but other factors are always welcome. The Bottom-Up and the Top-Down Approach, Maintenance Task Packages, and Boeing Maintenance Checks can be grouped into maintenance clusters.
By utilizing this simulation you fulfill 4 purposes:
1) You simulate the aircraft utilization 2) You calculate when a maintenance item turns due 3) You will fit each Boeing maintenance item into clusters 4) You generate maintenance clusters
Clustering is one of hundreds of optimization strategies you can be taking advantage of.
Whatever strategy you take, optimizing it to reduce your total cost of maintenance is the goal. There's no room for complacency.
According to Boeing SASMO application, through optimization you can save $500,000 over a 10 year period.
Now, I don't know about you but I would start optimizing your Boeing maintenance intervals today.
Want more information on your Boeing maintenance checks? Click here.
