Maintenance Error Management System

[Rigga]

Gents,

Some of you appear to be at that half-way stage where you have all the tools and the personnel - but not all of the will power to complete ALL the actions required.

This often means that your "Actionees" will correct what you have found and close the NCR (or whatever you call it now) by "Re-Briefing" the offender of that finding.

They (and possibly you too) have not progressed sufficiently to identify the Root Cause of the finding and then move to the "Preventive Action" stage - certainly not if you are getting repeat findings.

Repeat Findings prove that you have not cured the Root Cause and that the Re-Briefing hasn't worked.

Generally, any response with a "We fixed it and told the guy" phrase has not worked.


You must push for more positive attitudes and proper "closures" from all your end-user units.

For EVERY QA/MEMS Investigation, you MUST find the Root Cause and take corrective AND preventive actions.

A certified bollokking won't do!

Hope this helps.

 

[Past Engineering]

Hi Rigga, read your posts and on the whole you are correct, but the Quality Engineer or whoever sorts out the reports/investigations is and never has been empowered or is the accountable person who holds the purse string to action the findings, he can only carry out the investigation, put root causes, deliver the trends from previous inactions and push for action if he has the b**ls, but the bottom line is if the bloody management shove their collective heads up their collective butts, nothing will ever change as they cannot see the bleeding obvious right in front of them.

As you can gather I have been beating my head against a brick wall for some years against the luddites and also most places still do not have an accountable manager to spend money to resolve the main issues. As I said before we have had some success but it has so far been at either no cost or very little cost, like getting kit from places both service and civilian that are closing down, or re-briefing the guys on how the job should have been done and will be in the future.

Now people can pontificate on both sides of the fence but without the management structure, their will and funding it is all going to fall flat on its face as it has in the past. It has worked in a pure civvy industry, like Boeing who invented it, but it is going to be hard within the forces and within civvy organisations working on military contracts, on a military base following most military regulations.

I spoke to my manager friday and I told him that I did not think that MAOS will change things that much as it is the same management, same guys on the shop floor, all who will still have the same mentality, same constraints, same attitudes they do now and the bottom line is without money no scheme is going to be wholly succesfull and who has that within the military and the civvy organisations working within the military system these days.

Once again those at the top have re-invented the wheel to get a tick in the box, but the only people who are briefed, sent on courses and expected to follow any new creed are the guys at the bottom, untill the guys at the top and more importantly the middle management are put on these courses and learn what they should be doing we at the bottom are peeing itno the wind.

Just added for those who might not understand root cause analysis and corrective action think of Fault Diagnosis i.e. something goes wrong you need to know why it went wrong,(root cause) and what you are going to do to fix it (corrective action), you might even come up with an idea to stop it happening again (preventative action) - Simples DT_Xtremez_30:

 

[Rigga]

Hi Past Eng,

If you feel you have hit the Buffers with the current management and Cost ecologies; there is one way in which you can leave the findings open and still under some sort of management for future reviews and reference.

Log them into your company Safety Management System as a maintenance/management Hazard/Risk and fully explain (with evidence if you can)what the issues were/are and why they cannot be closed in the current climate.

It shouldn't matter how small the issue is, but the better ones to start with are the ones that will get 'shareholder' attention.

Using this system the finding is reviewed at least once per year and you are covered, in the event of any occurance, as the person logging the risk. (You told 'em and they didn't do anything = their problem) I know thats not a nice situation but its one that helps add concentration to the career minded.

Just by logging it should/may get some questions asked by your company to the operator/IPT as to why there is a risk to the operation that is not being properly addressed/mitigated towards ALARP. (Thats a nice H-C phrase if you needed one)

Alternatively, just wait until the 16th to see how MoD is going to react to H-C's recommendations, and prepare a letter of resignation! (though I'd hope you wont need it)

Again, Hope this helps.
Rigga

Edited bit:
Just realised that you may not have an SMS - If you haven't; Start a register of known unresolved issues and include a report in Monthly QA reviews - Your QAM should back this up?
Rigga

 

[wgaf]

Rigga, you really haven't got your head out of your arse over (M)EMS and the RAF yet have you! It is no different from any other reporting tool that we have employed before. Contrary to what you believe and what you are espousing on here, it is not the saviour of the techie world. Having spoken to many of the lads on the 'shop floor' in the civvy world, as well as the RAF, it is given lip service, much the same as any other management requirement used for compiling stats for the now prolific PIs. There is little or no factual evidence that these systems work to reduce errors. What is required is a mind set change from the ground up, this will not be achieved by forcing through measures discovered by some officer who has had contact with the civvy sector and has decided that their idea will work irrespective! It will only be achieved by a massive change in the training ethos. We have to change the very bottom line. Not attack those already entrenched! This will take years.
I have day to day dealings with those in the civvy sector and the military sector and if you honestly think that the civvy sector can show the military sector the way forward, with regard to flight safety, you are not only very much mistaken but blinded in the extreme. We are run on the requirements of making the sorties allowed within our budgets as safely as possible, civvy airlines are run on the requirements of how much money they can make from each sortie. A subtle yet huge difference.

 

[Past Engineering]

wgaf: just to say that if they are manged, funded and actioned as they should do, they do and will work, but you summed it up there has to be a mind set change from the top down, not the other way around, mute point I know but it does make a difference if you see my post above and money made available.

Rigga: We have an Access database to track all MEMS/MEDA issues and the graphs it produces are sent to the Safety Action Group meetings each month at corporate level, they are also looked at on a weekly basis by the local MEMS team, but the management that run the whole operation are still only paying lip service to it as they have no money, as I said until there is money available or contract changes or both (and contract changes are taking years not months etc and where is the money) then it will soon lose its impact, you can go on and on about how it works and what it should do but there is nothing you or I can do to 'make' management (they make the rules) do anything and to be quite honest handing in resignations would be just playing into their hands (they will just get someone who is more pliable) and effectively cutting of my nose to spite them.

 

[Rigga]

Past Eng,
What I wrote was...

"...Using this system the finding is reviewed at least once per year and you are covered, in the event of any occurance, as the person logging the risk. (You told 'em and they didn't do anything = their problem) I know thats not a nice situation but... "

Thats why you place these things in the SMS/database repository - as acknowledgement of their need for funds that are currently not available.

By doing this, the risk is documented as recognised and not actioned due to the lack of funds from the operator. It is then up to your company and the IPT to rectify the risk.

Sorry about the resignation quip - I'll try to clip the sarcasm out next time.


WGAF,
I do agree that attitudes have to change, but I am not in your position to change them. That sounds like your job, not mine. And yes, there are skeptics in every walk of life.

I have told you what I've done and something of the issues I have found and that I still have to try to correct.

However, you have quite clearly indicated what you perceive are the problems in your area, and you have also indicated that you're in a position of some authority as an instructor. So do something about changing those attitudes! - (perhaps with your own first?) other than just whingeing and insulting those who don't agree with your particular point of view.