Every industry has certifications that indicate standards of excellence achieved through the use of best practices. At a restaurant, diners may look to health inspection scores as a signal of safety; when it comes to vehicle repairs, consumers might seek a mechanic that is Automotive Service Excellence (ASE) certified.
In the aviation maintenance, repair and overhaul industry, Aerospace Standard (AS) 9110 serves as the benchmark for excellence. Following a recent third-party surveillance audit, Fleet Readiness Center East (FRCE) became the first aviation depot within Commander, Fleet Readiness Centers (COMFRC) to pass an AS9110 audit with no findings.
The result represents years of hard work and collaboration between many of FRCE’s internal departments, including Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) Production, MRO Logistics, MRO Engineering, Facilities and Infrastructure Management, and Compliance and Quality.
“As the first Fleet Readiness Center to complete an AS9110 audit with zero findings, it’s clear that our team’s hard work is paying off,” said Tina Rowe, MRO Production director at FRCE. “We are becoming the benchmark for the enterprise in how we do business; now, we need to keep the momentum going and sustain our standings so our customers continue to send work and to entice new customers and their potential workload.”
AS9110 assesses the processes, procedures and efficiencies of an organization’s quality management system. Conformance to the AS9110 standard is voluntary, and represents an above-and-beyond commitment to quality, said David Spencer, director of the Standards Division within FRCE’s Compliance and Quality Department.
“Customers can bring their business here knowing that our services are going to meet or exceed the intent of industry certification standards,” he explained. “Because we maintain this industry standard, our customers don’t need to come into our depot and do their own review of our processes. They can rest assured knowing that we're certified, that our systems are going to be right and tight, and that we’re going to get the job done with their products.”
Having the AS9110 certification makes FRCE an attractive choice for potential industry customers and helps the command retain existing customers, added FRCE Quality Manager Jeffrey O’Connell.
“In the public-private partnership environment that we’re in, a lot of private industry weighs the AS9110 certification heavily in considering where they go for work,” O’Connell said. “For some of the companies that work with us, having this certification makes it easier for them to partner with us than it would have been without it.”
The AS9110 standard, developed by the International Aerospace Quality Group, is not prescriptive – it doesn’t provide an organization with specific instructions to do the things required for certification, Spencer noted. Rather, it provides an outline of the requirements and certification to this standard assesses conformance to those requirements through a series of audits. A full recertification audit takes place every three years; in between, annual surveillance audits like the one conducted this summer take place at certified facilities to ensure continued conformance to the standard.
Whether assessing parts control and traceability, artisan training, product safety or a top management review, the standard doesn’t tell an organization how to do something, Spencer explained. “Instead, it breaks down the things you need to have, and the different layers of the organization that do those things. It’s really an external set of eyes that can come in and give us a good scrub.”
In addition to being the first FRC to complete AS9110 certification or surveillance with no audit findings, FRCE also became the first depot to earn certification from fence-to-fence, geographically speaking, rather than working to earn certification in individual buildings or lines. The cross-disciplinary, top-down approach toward quality management required to achieve whole-depot certification also helped FRCE shine in its most recent audit.
Daily meetings with MRO Production leadership provide a venue in which the team can rapidly address and resolve any quality management issues identified, Spencer said. The Facilities and Infrastructure Department head often sits in these meetings, as well, providing another level of support. Weekly meetings that also bring in MRO Logistics, MRO Engineering and the Compliance and Quality Department, offer opportunities to solve higher-level issues.
“This is not a triage meeting,” O’Connell explained. “We’re not trying to find and address a specific issue – we’re trying to determine why an issue occurred and whether we can get a process in place to address it. We’re dedicating some time to problem-solve, rather than simply triaging and firefighting, because firefighting never ends.”
The commitment from top management to addressing quality management issues at the root level has made a huge difference in the team’s ability to address concerns, which in turn leads to better performance in audit situations and improved throughput and cost efficiency.
“It’s management that’s gotten us to the point we’re at,” O’Connell said. “We could be here 20 hours a day and, without that management support, we would still be nowhere near the level we’re performing at now.”
Confidence in the depot’s quality management systems led the team to implement a new approach when the auditors arrived; instead of having a set tour schedule, Spencer and O’Connell let the auditors guide the process.
“It was completely open: This is our business, and this is how we’re doing it. If you see things to improve, we want to know because we want to improve it,” O’Connell said.
Spencer said the level of performance required to be comfortable with this free-range approach took years to achieve.
“If the auditors wanted to go see a process at the materials lab, we’d call the materials lab. They asked when the auditors wanted to come over, and I’d tell him they’d be there in five minutes,” Spencer said. “And then it was, what would you like to see next? And the auditors had entourages of leadership, from the senior to junior levels, guiding them around throughout the entire process. That’s indicative of a remarkable commitment to the program and level of support, and it has taken years to get here.”
In addition to leadership commitment, an organizational restructuring to a mission-aligned organization, which took place at FRCE and across the Naval Air Systems Command enterprise in 2019, has helped improve results.
“Each department’s goals are more aligned to a single end goal then they have ever been,” O’Connell said. “In the past, if an audit turned up a finding, the team would work to define whose problem that was. Now it’s everybody’s problem because if it’s a quality issue, that’s going to hamper all of us in getting to the end goal. People are engaged, and we fix it.”
The changes in the way quality issues get addressed represent a culture change within FRCE, Spencer added.
“We now attack issues and get them resourced, make them manageable and get them under control before they become problems,” he said. “We’re seeing excitement in a lot of people, not just the leadership but throughout the workforce and the people who are the customers of these processes. The rapid execution is helping with morale, it’s helping change the culture, and it’s impressive.
“This certification is a big deal, and the leadership commitment and support to the program has put us light years ahead of where we’ve ever been,” Spencer said.
FRCE is North Carolina's largest maintenance, repair, overhaul and technical services provider, with more than 4,000 civilian, military and contract workers. Its annual revenue exceeds $1 billion. The depot provides service to the fleet while functioning as an integral part of the greater U.S. Navy; Naval Air Systems Command; and Commander, Fleet Readiness Centers.