With the help of its EC155 customers, Eurocopter presented a short-term action plan
last summer to reduce the maintenance on this helicopter and provide significant gains
for operators.
EC155 customers can be rightly pleased. In Paris, on July 10,
2008, Eurocopter presented the first modifications to the
EC155’s current maintenance plan, which were identified in a
thorough analysis and will significantly reduce the aircraft’s operating
costs in the short term.
“We set up a special working group made up of Eurocopter staff from
Support & Services and the design office, as well as seven customers,
who brought to the table a very wide range of maintenance
issues taking into account
operational factors such
as the frequency of flights,
the environment and
the regulations,” explains
Véronique Cardin, EC155
Service Chief Engineer at
Eurocopter. The customers
representing the oil and gas
segment were Bristow UK,
Bristow Nigeria, DanCopter,
HeliOne as well as CHC
Scotia and CHC Netherlands, whilst the German Federal Police
and Mont Blanc Hélicoptères represented the law enforcement and
corporate segments.” During the project’s first stage, which was
conducted between September and December 2007, customers
were interviewed separately to ascertain their experience “in the field”
of the maintenance program. The interviews identified maintenance
tasks that were too close together, or seemed unnecessary, and
pinpointed the most expensive operations or the concepts that were
most difficult to understand.
After these interviews, an action plan was drawn up and presented
to the working group, and several actions have already been finalized
leading to significant operational gains. The bulk of the actions are
based on a win-win process requiring a contribution from the customers
participating in the working group. The customers provide
Eurocopter with detailed reports attesting that they have uncovered
no problems when performing certain maintenance operations that
are penalizing in terms of manpower and aircraft downtime. In return,
the design office endorses the extension of the inspection intervals
or the simplification of the maintenance task. What’s more, a similar
approach has now been launched for the EC225.
