Preventive Maintenance in Hard Times

Preventive maintenance is never easy to budget for — in time or money. We're always too busy fixing broken equipment that we never get around to doing the preventive maintenance which, of course, eventually results in even more broken equipment. Stopping this cycle is difficult in the best of times but clearly a much greater challenge today. These may not be the worst of times, but I can't think of any worse times for aviation in my lifetime. But we need to break this cycle, if for no other reason than it really costs more in the end.  Tightening the fan belt today could keep it from breaking and having to be replaced tomorrow. We all know this but that doesn't make it any easier when we're just trying to make it from day-to-day. I know, you're thinking who's going to tell the ramp sup his critical piece of equipment isn't available because of some PM check? But you miss this PM check and then you miss the next one and pretty soon, you have a broken piece of equipment to contend with. Not a good scenario. Back when I was responsible for ground equipment, I got caught in that same cycle of putting off preventive maintenance for one reason or another and then ending up with broken and unusable equipment. We finally decided that we had to bite the bullet and stop this cycle, because it was costing us more time and money in the end. So we decided that we would give the ramp sup a schedule of PM items and tell him he needed to do what it took to temporarily replace that equipment — rent, borrow or steal (OK, not steal) — because the checks needed to get done. And we were going to stick to our plan no matter what. It wasn't easy, but after a few months we noticed a difference in the number of breakdowns. We all know this but we're pushed by the constant pressure to keep things moving. I know it's tough to "just say no," as a former first lady used to say, but sometimes we really do just have to pause and do the right thing for the long term.