TECHNOLOGY IN THE WORKPLACE Terry Peed | Contributing Author
DR. FRANKENSTEIN: When Did His
We have all seen at least one version of the movie “Dr. Frankenstein,” based on Mary Shelley’s 1818 novel. It
is the fi ctional story of the good Dr. Frankenstein who, in his quest to advance science, went too far with his over-reaching goals that resulted in unintended consequences. His original intentions to serve humanity and save lives led him to believe he could bring back life, but he only ended up creating a monster. The Dr. Frankensteins that I am referring to in this
modern-day tale are aamong us. While Shelly’s Dr. Frankenstein used technology to create his monster, the technology advances we have implemented in our hangars can create monsters of another sort. As you can probably guess by now, I am a baby boomer and not very computer literate. This is not to say that I don’t appreciate the computer. I am sitting here writing this article right now, tickled pink that I’m not using my old IBM typewriter with its “spell check” capabilities (a ream of paper, a bottle of white out and a large waste basket). I love the word processor and the internet research capabilities. You will get no argument from me that computers and the
diff erent applications software manufacturers have developed have advanced the aviation industry immensely. Some of the tasks made easier by computer and internet technology are: • Training • Searching for parts and services • Log book entries and work orders • Records archiving • AD searches • Manuals navigation • Inventory • Billing invoices for customers • Technical reliability reports • Warranty claims processing • Aircraft availability for operations • And EVEN reading magazines These are just a few of the tasks to benefi t the many people and departments that it takes to run an aviation organization. As I said earlier, Dr. Frankenstein started with the best of intentions, and I believe the computers and the technology that we use are a huge help. My biggest fear is that in our
Creation Become a Monster?
quest to implement technology that
will do everything for everyone, our company management that
selects and implements this technology often puts most of the burden for collecting all of the data needed to satisfy all of the departments squarely on the shoulders of the mechanic. I am
afraid the modern day Dr. Frankensteins may be creating a monster called distraction.
Distraction I work for a Part 145 repair station. As an example of what I’m talking about — a few years ago, my company purchased a fairly simple software program designed especially for Part 145 repair stations. There are many tiers to this program that link up for aircraft records keeping, parts ordering, manpower time keeping, billing for accounting and work order management. It has provisions for generating a logbook entry but we have found it lacking. After getting this software for the few computers we had, we found that we didn’t have enough computers for the amount of mechanics that we had and they were required to go to the maintenance offi ce to use them. Technology advances, so we purchased about a dozen more computers with workstation podiums that could be placed right next to the aircraft for maintenance. As another example, the aircraft manufacturers have started putting their technical manuals on CD/ROM that we can load into our computers to have access to them. From the time a project begins on an aircraft to the time the customer picks it up and leaves, the mechanic tracks it on the computer. This solves some obvious problems, but also produces a new set of problems that I will address shortly. No system is perfect. Keep that in mind when deciding to implement computer technology in your organization. Here are
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HelicopterMaintenanceMagazine.com February | March 2014
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