Going Electronic #14

Tracking On-Condition Items

Many maintenance applications will not allow you to track the life of a part that has no limitation. But some manufacturers require that the usage of certain components must be tracked even though there is no published airworthiness limitation or overhaul life. Indeed, for many things, this is a pretty good idea, and WinAir makes it easy. When a controlled rotable is removed from an aircraft, the user simply selects the aircraft times from a list generated by the flight log module. The time since install is then automatically calculated and added to the previous times AT install to arrive at current TSN, TSO, etc for the part. This information becomes part of the record for the component and follows it wherever it goes. If a part has 2851.7 TSN when it comes off an aircraft, you can send it out for repair, receive it back in, leave it on the shelf for six months, then issue it out to another aircraft, and it will still have 2851.7 TSN. When it comes off that aircraft, the TSN will increase accordingly.

WinAir allows you to establish positions for the components on an aircraft - called MCNs - and then record the limitations for each associated P/N individually. You can leave the limitations fields blank for some or all of the P/N's that can be installed in a particular position. The usage will still be calculated automatically for any part installed in that position, and it will be calculated for all the units that apply. If a Custom Counter for the position has been set up to track, for instance, time spent in the One Engine Inoperative power range, then that time will be calculated for any component installed in the position, whether it has a limit or not.

This means that you can set up MCNs to monitor the reliablility of components without actually imposing a life on them. If you want to track how many hours accumulate on a particular P/N that is getting replaced often, you can set up an MCN for it and find out exactly how long they are lasting. Perhaps you will find that the reworked ones you are buying for half the cost of new are only lasting 20% of the time a new one does. Maybe a particular P/N actuator is, on average, failing at 2300 hrs and down time could be reduced by establishing a company requirement to have them overhauled at 2000 hrs. You could even monitor how long the parts from one repair shop are lasting compared with repairs from another.

Here is another tricky situation you may have to deal with. What if a part has a life on one type of aircraft, but when installed on another it has a different life, or it has no life at all? Some maintenance applications require that the life is specified in the record for the P/N, but in WinAir, the life is recorded in the Maintenance Schedule Templates for each P/N, in each position, on each aircraft type. This means that you can move a part from one type to another and the TSN, TSO, etc will be tracked no matter what the life on any particular aircraft type is. Once installed, the life in that position on that aircraft type takes effect.

We know the difficulties you can face, because we have faced them. We know your business, and we know how to make your life easier!