KLM UK Engineering is a leading aircraft maintenance and repair organization and a wholly owned subsidiary of the KLM Group. It has been based at Norwich International Airport for 40 years, providing base and line maintenance, technical training, component repairs and other aviation support services for a range of aircraft including the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320.
At a time when many airlines are facing further airfare reductions to remain competitive, KLM UK Engineering has been continually investing in new computer systems, in particular SFDC and T&A systems, to improve efficiency and cut costs.
KLM UK Engineering initially bought Syspro to control the allocation of labor hours to specific aircraft maintenance work. With a number of work orders containing hundreds of different operations (job cards) going on any one time, effective human resource management became fundamental to the entire running of the company, especially as the cost of employing skilled technicians is a high proportion of its total expenditure. In addition, many customers were asking for detailed job card data, which the company could not provide quickly or easily.
With the fully integrated Syspro solution, KLM UK Engineering made a major leap from the manual reconciliation of time paid with hours booked on jobs, to an integrated T&A and SFDC system that would process data from job cards and input it to any one of 18 intelligent data collection terminals via barcode swipe cards, scanners, or keyboard.
Every employee in the company now carries a barcoded identity card. At the beginning and end of every task, the operator swipes their card, then uses a scanner to read the bar code on the job card. A key on the terminal allows the operator to sign on/off against several jobs that might be undertaken in succession on the same aircraft, thus avoiding the need to climb down from an aircraft to walk to the nearest terminal.
The flexibility to pre-set precise percentage figures against estimates has helped KLM UK Engineering to work within budget and monitor potential job overruns, especially with third-party operators. If alerts indicate that a certain job might go over budget, the implications can be discussed with the customer without delay.
“There is very little doubt in my mind that competition is set to intensify as new players enter the airline industry, which means that we have to keep on investing in computer systems that provide further efficiency gains.”
— Ian Harvey, Systems Accountant, KLM UK Engineering
The system generates detailed reports on time allocation, which has helped KLM UK Engineering’s maintenance management team improve resource planning and programming. The real-time T&A and SFDC capability enables information to be collected and collated as jobs progress, enabling different aircraft types to be serviced and shift patterns to be changed as needed. The company is also able to operate as a profit center.
The management team identified a need to integrate the company’s computer systems to improve efficiency and cut costs. KLM UK Engineering was also looking to migrate from manual reconciliation of time paid with hours booked on jobs, to an integrated system that would process data from job cards and input via barcode swipe cards, scanners, or keyboard, to any one of 18 intelligent data collection terminals.
KLM UK Engineering implemented a fully integrated Syspro solution which incorporates HR Management, Time and Attendance (T&A), and a Shop Floor Data Capture (SFDC) system.
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