MECH - Fall Winter 2020 - VOL. 65, No 2

The use of unsafe maintenance equipment is an unnecessary risk that should never be viewed as acceptable. Those that maintain and enforce the Support Equipment Planned Maintenance System must understand the significance of abiding by the guidelines of the Naval Aviation Maintenance Program (NAMP) and local policies. Not abiding by set guidelines and procedures could result in injury to personnel, damage to equipment or aircraft.

This article will discuss assessment findings, factors contributing to procedural noncompliance and means of mitigating noncompliance.

Findings from 20 command assessments have shown a worrying trend of commands sidestepping the directions laid out by the NAMP. In many instances, maintenance history records for equipment used to do work on aircraft had no documentation of the completion of required baseline or subsequent technical directive screenings. Records for lift slings that had recently received nondestructive inspection had no documentation to prove that the slings had passed the inspection and were safe for maintainers. Servicing equipment that was overdue for technical directive compliance had no work order written against them and was still used by maintainers. Maintenance equipment that

was not in preserved status did not have required preventative maintenance tasks activated. Equipment that was overdue for periodic maintenance was readily available for maintainers to use. Support equipment that is overdue for periodic maintenance is considered down and should never be used. Using down equipment exposes personnel and aircraft to needless hazards. Now that I have discussed some of the assessment findings, I will share some of the contributing factors.

After studying all the findings and accounts from numerous assessments, a few of the items were found to be contributing factors to procedural noncompliance. The maintenance department lacked equipment and the ability to see the importance of holding the upkeep of maintenance tools. Also, their records did not keep the same standards as they would for an aircraft. The junior service member that is usually assigned to the program seemed to have a lack of in-depth program knowledge. This happens often due to inadequate training.

It was also noted that those who are charged with program oversight are not doing their job. This is a culture problem and must be corrected. Now that I`ve shared some of the contributing factors, I will also name some of the process improvement measures implemented at commands.

Some of the noted practices that seemed to mitigate program noncompliance are as follows:

• Having a command culture that stresses and lives by getting the job done and working within the guidelines of the applicable instructions.

• Having a process improvement that works and performs weekly hands-on training for the maintenance administration team. This widely increased the administrative team’s knowledge base, which allowed them to pick up where a team member left off.

I have also seen commands that have quality assurance implement weekly administrative spot checks, which assist in the identification and correction of discrepancies.

This article discussed assessment findings, factors contributing to procedural noncompliance and means of mitigating noncompliance. It is important that those who maintain and enforce the Support Equipment Planned Maintenance System, understand the significance of abiding by program guidelines because not abiding by set guidelines and instructions could result in injury to personnel, damage to equipment or aircraft.

In closing, keep in mind that the right decision will often be the hardest one to make.