thinking philosophy how has TAR equipped themselves to become a successful MRO business? Experience is invaluable and with more than 32 years in the aviation MRO business, TAR has repaired over 8,000 APUs and 200,000 accessories. As an authorised Honeywell service center, it became the exclusive factory service centre for the GTCP 660 and TSCP700 product lines. Through the expertise and dedication of the company’s workforce, the MRO offers a flexible range of services in support of a large range of APU models. It not only has experience supporting airlines, but also shares its knowledge in support of OEM operations, whether by providing reliability information of OEM parts, assisting in sourcing hard to find materials and parts, or assisting the OEM with overflow from their shops. Equipment is a key factor. In any successful business you have got to have the right tools for the job. TAR has three cross-functional, OEM-correlated, APU test cells to support the GTCP85, GTCP131, GTCP331, GTCP660, TSCP700 and PW901 series of products, and the organisation is continually evaluating the opportunities to add more APU models to their capabilities.
Let’s get technical In a competitive industry, an MRO will not last long unless they possess an intimate technical knowledge of the products they support. TAR utilises its knowledge not only to perform manual repairs, but to develop and perform advanced technology repairs, as an important contribution to reducing the operating costs of their customers. These alternate repairs target components that have high replacement rates and high failure rates. The ability to rebuild components to reduce the failure rate ultimately improves the on-wing performance and reliability of the APU. With an in-house engineering department, TAR works with customers to determine what parts are negatively impacting reliability of the APU and affecting operating costs. Once the specific components are highlighted, the experienced engineering team pursues repairs and establishes processes that reduce operating costs while maintaining the reliability of the part. In many cases, the applied repairs improve the durability of components. To bring these alternate repairs to life TAR has its own in-house DER, who is certified to create and document non-manual alternate repairs to parts which might otherwise be scrapped if either no manual repair exists, or if the manual repair is limited or simply not robust enough to serve the need. All of this is done in close collaboration with the operator, to save cost to the customer and increase profitability.
TAR has repaired more than 8,000 APUs and 200,000 accessories. The customer-focused team at Triumph Air Repair adapts their services to meet many varied customer requirements. Support includes 24-hour AOG support, troubleshooting, customer-training programnes, and APU health trend monitoring. A programme manager is assigned as the single point of contact for each customer. If a customer has an ‘expedite’ request or trouble-shooting requirement, the dedicated programme manager provides the customer with immediate options to meet the need. In less urgent situations, this same customer care team takes time to customise maintenance programmes and proposals to meet each customer’s special needs. The maintenance programmes can be tailored to address a customer’s operational, regulatory and/or cash flow requirements. As a FAA-approved repair station, Triumph Air Repair takes great care to maintain quality assurance (QA). Their QA group is dedicated to strict adherence to FAA and EASA requirements and believes that quality cannot be an afterthought at the end of a job. The QA process of any job performed begins before the customer’s unit arrives for repair. The QA group works closely with the customer’s quality programme to assure compliance with the govern-
ing agencies as well as the customer’s unique quality requirements which may go beyond FAA or EASA requirements. Triumph Air Repair is on the audit schedule of major airline and cargo carriers and is CASE-registered and audited on a bi-annual basis. It would be impossible in the context of this article to present every possible aspect of an MRO. A successful MRO is in tune with the customers they service, so it could be said that the advantages of partnering with an MRO are myriad as the variety of aviation customers that exist in the world— each customer being unique with different needs. This article seeks to give some insight into the many reasons an airline might seek to partner with an MRO for their repair and overhaul needs. There are many choices available, which in a healthy market helps keep pricing competitive. In any business action, the advantages must be weighed, and whether an airline chooses an OEM or an MRO, the important thing to remember is that there is a choice. The best advice for an airline considering an MRO would be to make contact, and find out what that MRO has to offer. Check out as many shops as needed until an MRO is found that is a good fit your unique operational needs. Keep them flying! I
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