WHY COLIBRY?
Everyone’s personal history brings one-self to where one is at any specific moment in time.
Percy was once missioned to check on Falcon aircraft maintenance costs on MRO sites both in France and Switzerland and make proposals from return on experiences, both engineering and maintenance cost-wise. The aircraft concerned were under warranty and/or Falcon Care coverage.
Excerpts from a conversation with him
“There’s a lot of noise and smoke screens in this ecosystem“.
When he first started the mission, he was quickly told by the MRO management from day 1 that he had restricted access to aircraft being under inspection (for security reasons). He was not allowed to talk to technicians on the floor, not allowed to go on the floor by himself and check on the aircraft under maintenance.
The funniest bit was that, whenever he was on site, they got him in an office with a window overviewing the shop floor where the aircraft were going under maintenance. Except that the window had a thick opaque film glued to it so that he could not see what was happening on the floor. He could, however, hear the noise, both in the shop and on the management floors!
Why all the restrictions? “Because it’s all related to hidden costs! How maintenance is being dealt with, the use of the aircraft maintenance manual, parts and labor costs, waiting time costs, supply chain costs, no fault found cost, design costs“.
“What is involved in maintenance costs and, what triggers costs and, how they’re triggered is each and everyone’s responsibility“.
The accountability aspect.
Percy cared for those floor technicians. People with professionalism, those who crawled in a fuel tank that you would think only a dwarf could do it, those who were simply fired because they came to him, opening on how things were dealt with. “I was never blind, grateful to these people and never forgot this. Never will because I carry them in my heart”.
“What’s important to understand is all these hidden costs: those extras involved in the findings, the double billings, the initial “cost” target set by the MRO way before the aircraft lands on the shop floor“.
There’s one other part of the noise and it’s the lack of traceability he says. Just listen to the whisper trend on the market: Traceability of data.
“If you only camp, in a position letting others make decisions on how you should deal with your maintenance, you will always lose a lot of money and never deal with maintenance in an accountable way. Whether or not your aircraft is under coverage“.
A one size fit all is never a solution.
So, why COLIBRY?
To share with all these stakeholders struggling to get away from the noise and smoke screens, to not feel like they’re being fooled by costs and have no means of negotiating otherwise.
For those who spent so much precious time looking into tons of daily emails and pictures and not really knowing what we’re talking about.
For those who wish they could access data quickly enough not to lose themselves in useless meetings.
For those who shared with him their wish to have a different way of dealing with maintenance and worry more about spending quality time elsewhere.
At the click of a finger, Colibry is a noise-filter.