Addressing the challenges that Aviation Service Providers face
The aviation industry continues to approach normality in 2023 and, while this is of course excellent news for the industry, it does pose a challenge for aviation service providers who might struggle to meet the rising demand from airlines and aircraft operators.
What challenges do Aviation Service Providers face?
There are a multitude of challenges faced by aviation service providers, with many of these issues exacerbated by the impact of Covid-19 has had on the aviation industry. Below are a few issues that stand out:
Tough climates and environments
Like many roles within the sector, aviation service provider roles can come with an element of risk, particularly from the machinery or chemicals that they use. For those in ground handling roles, you also have weather conditions posing a risk, a risk that continues to be intensified by climate change. This can result in wet, windy, cold or alternatively extremely hot and humid working environments. Working at night and under pressure in these conditions requires a high level of resilience, as well as robust safety measures employed by the organization.
Recruitment
The pandemic resulted in an unfortunate number of redundancies across the sector. Recent data has shown that “the number of people working in air transport across the European Union is at its lowest level in 14 years.”
Replacing staff to keep up with a quickly growing aviation market is difficult, especially finding the necessary level of expertise to work in challenging conditions. You’ve also got the challenges of training new staff or those returning to the industry after an absence during the pandemic.
Adapting to new technological expectations
Technology has rapidly expanded across all sectors and it’s something we talk about frequently in reference to the positive benefits innovation brings. However, with that innovation comes a heightened level of expectation from passengers in terms of their experience. Aviation service providers have to deliver a balance between a speedy and seamless service that also ensures safety as the top priority. That’s a tricky balance, and can often result in tech being acquired but used in isolation. This can lead to insights being siloed and therefore not being implemented effectively. Ultimately, this adds time instead of saving it.
How a digital QMS can address these challenges
A flexible digital quality management system (QMS) is an essential tool in addressing the challenges that aviation service providers face, both from a quality and safety standpoint. A QMS gives you one focal point for all your information, so management has a complete overview of operations without physically having to be on the shop floor, or on ground at an airport. Here are some examples of how a QMS can help solve some of your pain points:
Aligning your tech
By integrating a digital system, you can align all your technology in one space. Create customized workflows so that analytics are monitored and findings are implemented. With the mobile app, you can capture data in real-time on custom forms, speeding up communication flow and response times. This also gives your management complete visibility over all operations without having to be on-ground themselves. Automatic notifications mean that decisions can be made rapidly and the dynamic reporting function means trends can be captured over the long-term and reoccurring issues resolved.
Communication cohesion
No amount of innovative AI or Robotics will eliminate issues altogether, so it’s vital that your communication levels and your processes are robust. Part of that is in your document management. For instance, with Q-Pulse QMS, you gain complete control over your document approval process, ensuring you keep one master version of any document that you control access to. Audit trails give you a clear picture of changes made to a document across the lifecycle and the notification system means you can avoid time lost in chasing for approval.
In addition, the audit module allows you to demonstrate compliance at every stage. Create bespoke templates for each audit you carry out, so that you can ensure consistency and track KPIs over time. Assign auditors based on their experience and availability and filter findings into a CAPA workflow so that issues are prevented from recurring.
Q-Pulse QMS has everything we need. Without controlled documentation, you can’t operate efficiently, so an effective means of managing documents is essential.
Comprehensive Training
When onboarding new staff in aviation services, it’s important to provide a comprehensive and consistent training program. A digital QMS allows you to build and schedule training sessions in tailored categories, store records in a centralized library, view training from a simple and clean calendar view, and add new courses at the touch of a button where staff need refreshing or upskilling.
This allows you to onboard a confident workforce ready to tackle any challenge, as well as refresh those who might have been out of the industry for months or years.
Improved reporting accuracy
Manually reporting an incident can be a cumbersome and time-consuming and, if rushed, can result in inaccuracies rendering the report pointless.
But, by automating this incident reporting process, you not only reduce the likelihood of human error but simultaneously create a culture of safety. By providing more accurate and reliable data for analysis, businesses can identify potential safety risks and take proactive measures to mitigate them. Additionally, digital systems can help ensure that incidents are reported in a timely manner, which can further improve safety outcomes by enabling prompt responses and interventions
Ideagen’s Health and Safety Solutions make us 99%-100% more accurate compared to old methods of reporting that, if rushed, had the potential to be around half of that.
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See first-hand how ‘The Inland Group of Companies’ successfully implemented an Ideagen solution and how they achieved total operational transparency across their organization.
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