Is your Airworthiness Compliance in Danger? How to get a First Indication with The Data Traffic Light System
Data plays a crucial role in ensuring airworthiness compliance for aircraft. Regulatory bodies require operators to maintain detailed records of maintenance, inspections, and repairs, as well as the airworthiness status of their aircraft. Accurate and reliable data is essential for identifying and addressing any issues before they become a safety concern, and for demonstrating compliance during inspections and audits.
Based on years of experience working with airworthiness and maintenance data we share in this blog how to get a first indication if data in your MRO/M&E system is accurate and reliable or endangers airworthiness compliance. We call it the data traffic light system and its based on the following four criteria that are relevant:
How was the initial data migration performed?
Business processes, workplace instructions including data standards
Data awareness training
Automated data health checks
Red Light
If data was only pushed from the old system to the new MRO/M&E system without proper cleansing and validation, this means an error in the old system is still an error in the new system. This is the first indicator for a red status. A second one is that business processes and procedures are not in place or not being followed properly. Thus, engineers may create their own workarounds, leading to a lack of trust in the data and a lack of one source of truth. We do not even need to talk about the other two points as already these two put airworthiness compliance at risk and can result in audit findings or the grounding of aircraft.
Action: Stop, and focus on your data right away
orange Light
During the initial data migration, all data was cleansed and properly validated before it was migrated into the new MRO/M&E system. Next to that business processes and procedures and workplace instructions are in place and followed. However, no data standards have been added to the procedures. Moreover, no data awareness training or checks are taking place. As data is continuously added to the system through manual data entries, interfaces with other systems, and new data uploads but without following any standards and without any checks the risk of unreliable and inaccurate data is high. It calls for more attention to be focused on data quality.
Action: Caution, focus more on the data as you are in the danger zone
Yellow Light
Data was properly cleansed and validated before migration and business processes, procedures and data standards are in place. However, no data awareness training and automated checks are taking place. This creates an airworthiness compliance risk. Your fleet data is following a high standard but as time goes by people tend to get a routine and might not follow procedures properly anymore, therefore data awareness training is of such importance. Given the large volume of data that is entered into the MRO/M&E system on a daily basis, especially for airlines with a large fleet and/or MRO operations, it is easy to miss minor errors or inconsistencies that can accumulate over time and lead to airworthiness problems and aircraft on ground (AOG) situations. Thus, automated data health checks take away the final risks that any flowed or inaccurate data in the system might affect airworthiness compliance.
Action: Start with data health check initiatives and awareness training
green light
You have a green status if all data was properly cleansed and validated before migration and business processes, procedures and data standards are in place. Plus data awareness training and regular automated checks are taking place.
Action: Go and keep up the good work
Last but not least to ensure that the data in your MRO/M&E system is accurate and reliable, it is essential that your company implements independent data audits and/or data monitoring systems. This will enable you and your colleagues to trust the system and confidently discontinue the use of Excel and other workarounds.
