Theoretical And Empirical Analysis Of The Improvement And Development Of Avionics Repair Station Quality System

This thesis discusses the issues of how to improve repair quality to maximum guarantee the continuous airworthiness of the aircraft parts repaired by avionics repair station, while in line with the requirements of civil aviation quality system. Avionics repair station is the maintenance unit for civil aircraft parts. It is responsible for the maintenance of the airborne computers installed in Airbus aircrafts. Its quality system is established in accordance with CCAR-145: Certification of Maintenance Organization for Civil Aircrafts, which guarantees the airworthiness of the repaired parts. Airworthiness is that aircraft conforms to the engineering specifications and maintains such conditions, which includes the processes of design, manufacture, operation and maintenance. According to CCAR-145, civil aviation authority inspects the quality system of avionics repair station for the following items: personnel, equipment, material, documentation and facilities. Therefore, this thesis first introduces the relevant regulations and requirements of the quality system, describes the self-audit system and the requirements for the overall repair process of aircraft parts, which includes preliminary inspection, acceptance, repair and release procedure.On the premise of guaranteeing reliability of aircraft and parts, civil aviation maintenance quality system is being developed independently. It has the unique characteristics: the importance of the QC/release personnel; authority of the repair documentations. However, it is inevitably influenced by other quality standards. Compared with other quality management system, it has both differences and sameness.The comparison between ISO 9002:1994 and repair station quality system shows the requirements of them are similar basically. Compared with ISO 9000:2000 standard, repair station quality system can learn some benefit from the former, which are process method, continuous improvement, decision-making on the basis of fact. There are also differences between TQM (Total Quality Management) and repair station quality system, which are: differences of control factor; differences of management means; differences of improvement procedure. It may give hints on quality system improvement. The electronic parts in the airborne computers are ageing obviously more and more as the time goes on. It happened that the airborne computers were sent here for repair many times with short time spans. Preventive measures are one of the important means of the continuous improvement which may prevent such case from happening again. Quality management group is an effective way which encourages and organizes all the staff participating in the quality improvement activities. The group should include: technicians, QC/release personnel, and quality assurance manager. The PDCA circle adopted by repair station has four phases: plan, do, check, action. The eight steps of the quality improvement are: raise the problem; analyze the quality issues; find out the main reason; work out the improvement measures; check the results; summarize and standardize; carry-over issues transferred to next circle.Repair station should carry through quality culture construction which can promote the quality continuous improvement greatly. At the end, one case study-maintenance quality improvement for airborne EA computer, demonstrates that the above quality improvement procedures are feasible and effective to resolve the potential issues in the repair process.