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MANAGEMENT MATTERS Hit The Road Jack You need to spend more time on the hangar fl oor I By Wayne Fry remember sitting in a meeting with a handful of managers discussing some proposed changes to our repair sta- tion procedures. We were planning on implementing a new system that would streamline the movement of serviceable parts through the facility. Naturally, we needed to understand the current system to see if the proposed system improved the process. After we began the discussion, we quickly realized that no one really knew how it was actually done. This was because everyone in the meeting had been working behind a desk for the past five years. None of us had actually done the work ourselves or moved a single part through the building. It didn't help that our manual was so vague that there was no way to read it and know how the parts flowed from area to area. If we couldn't figure it out, how could we expect the mechanics in the shops to figure it out? To fix this, we all spent some time in the shops and then brought in one of the shop managers to walk us through the process. It turned out that there were many processes for moving parts around. And not one of them was even close to what we had written in our manual. Once we determined how we wanted the flow to go, we were able to make our changes. If you're not in the shops or on the hangar floor on a regular basis, you don't really know what's going on. Honest. Know what's going on As a manager, you need to know what's going on. But I don't want you to go out and make a whirlwind tour of the shops. Don't spend 10 minutes with the hangar crews and think you've figured it all out. To know what's going on, you need to spend some real time there. I had a boss who used to send all of his managers into the shops or out to the field locations on a regular basis. We had a dozen or so bases in Texas and Louisiana along the Gulf of Mexico, where we supported our fleet of helicopters to support the offshore oil rigs. When a maintenance manager from one 60 September 2011 of our bases took a vacation, one of us from Galactic Headquarters would take his place. We didn't just grab a company car and stop by for coffee; we spent a week there and worked. After we had been there a day or so, the field mechanics (who often had only a very tenta- tive connection to the head shed) forgot that we were 'spies' for management and treated us with the same amount of respect that they treated their regular boss; painfully little. On each of those trips, I learned a great deal about what was working, (and what wasn't) where the real problems were, and got a lot of suggestions on how to fix problem areas. Plus, as an added bonus, I got to go out and put my hands on real live aircraft and do some honest work. The repair station seemed to have a life of its own, and was forever evolving. If you didn't completely immerse yourself in the sys- tem, you would occasionally bump up against a surprise, sometimes a good one, sometimes a bad one. But I don't have time But, you say. I don't have time to go to the field or to the hangar floor. Yes you do. No, you say, I'm too important; this place will fall apart if I'm not here. No it won't. For you to do your job, you need to know what's going on. And you won't always do that sitting behind your desk or talking on your cell phone. You just have to find the time to do it. No matter how good your organization is, if you don't monitor and update your procedures, they will change of their own accord. People like to find new and better ways to do their work. Aircraft mechanics may be the worst (or best, depending on how you look at it). The typical A&P; mechanic is con- tinually fixing things that are broken. This includes the aircraft, the tugs, the plumbing in the hangar, and the company processes and procedures. What he may not do is let you know that he's "fixed" some of your broken policies. This means that there may be nonstandard procedures being used that you don't know about. Aircraft Maintenance Technology • www.AMTonline.com • www.AMTSociety.org