Development of New System for Spare Parts Repair to Reduce AOG Situations in SAUDIA Special Flight Services Division

摘要

The Special Flight Services is a division of Saudi Arabian Airlines - SAUDIA, that operates small private jet air crafts to serve government top officials and its distinguished guests, as well as charter flights for business companies. The SFS division has experienced lately a serious problem called AOG or Aircraft On Ground, which is the inability of the aircraft to fly due to a technical problem caused by the unavailability of the required spare parts to fix it. This paper summarizes the study that was conducted to resolve this problem. The goals of the study were to minimize the frequency of the AOG occurrences and to reduce the average AOG duration when they occur. The procurement and Stores departments were studied and their processes were analyzed to determine the root causes of the problem. The repair cycle of the spare parts was reengineered to make it shorter and more efficient; the critical spare parts were identified, their demand and their optimal stock quantity were estimated. The existing repair cycle was reduced from a total of 23 activities taking an average total time of 149 days to only 15 activities requiring an average repair time of 30 days; an enhancement of almost 80% in average repair time was achieved by reengineering the repair cycle. Seventeen critical parts were identified and few additional numbers of each part were needed to be on stock. These measures improved the problem and made it within acceptable normal level.