Aircraft operational planning Lakshya KORE

Kaizen’s OperatiOns & research entity Presents

AIRCRAFT OPERATIONAL PLANNING

By ABHISHEK LALWANI

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EDITOR’S LETTER “"Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great."”

Welcome to the third edition of “LAKSHYA”, our monthly supplement designed for people who dare to think above the average and believe in connecting the dots. In an age where technology has taken over every sphere, information is abundant and data is omnipresent, we have conspired to bring to you a collection of thoughtfully created and carefully curated pieces of work by some bright aspiring minds of ICFAI Business School, Hyderabad on the current trends and hot topics in the field of Operations Management and their relevance in different industries.

Making risk decisions at the appropriate level establishes clear accountability.

Those accountable for the success or failure of a mission must be included in the risk decision process. Supervisions at all levels must ensure subordinates know how much risk they can accept and when they must elevate the decision to a higher level.

We look forward to providing you with some valuable insights and inculcate the passion for reading once again within you all. We hope that you enjoy this first issue and do let us know if there are any topics you’d like to see covered in the future.

Please write to us and become a part of this discussion Email ID: kaizenclub.ibs@gmail.com

SUHAIL SHAIKH IT HEAD Kaizen – IBS Hyderabad

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CONTENTS Cover Story: Aircraft Operational Planning

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Cloud Computing – Will it take over?

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CAD: -COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN

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Aircraft operational planning

BY Abhishek Lalwani

It is essential that all aviation operations be planned with the utmost consideration given to safety and operational efficiency. Missions can be accomplished safely and efficiently, provided that a high degree of preplanning, risk analysis, and management is applied. Many users have developed Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) that streamline the planning process, incorporate the lessons learned from others experience, and utilize the best practices that balance the demands for safety and efficiency.

This article discusses operational areas that must be addressed and actions that must be performed during the flight planning and scheduling process, including but not limited to: • Assessment and mitigation of hazards • Selection of aircraft • Cost-analysis • Submission of the Aircraft Flight Request/Schedule • Scheduling of aircraft with vendors • Ensuring that sufficient, qualified personnel are assigned • Pilot and aircraft approvals • Pre-flight briefings 4 |K A I Z E N ’ S O P E R A T I O N S & R E S E A R C H E N T I T Y

• Post-flight evaluation Several agencies use a Safety Management Systems (SMS) approach as the foundation to aviation safety.

The four pillars of SMS are Safety Policy, Safety Risk Management, Safety Assurance and Safety Promotion. SMS is also the standard for safety set by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

SMS will promote the transition from the traditional approach to aviation safety which: • Reacts to undesirable events • Focuses on compliance • Creates a culture of blame and individual accountability • Addresses only known safety concerns to the contemporary approach which emphasizes a proactive risk management • Promotes a “Just” culture • Addresses systemic safety concerns • Holds the organization accountable • Communicates the “Why” so the culture can learn from mistakes. The intent of SMS is to improve the aviation culture by increasing hazard identification, reducing risk taking behaviour, learning from mistakes and correcting procedures before a mishap occurs rather than after the accident. The SMS process is being used to achieve a positive reduction in the number of aircraft accidents by identifying hazards inherent to the mission, recognizing human behaviours that result in error, and devising preventive measures that will counter against these occurrences.

Much of this analysis and mitigation applies to factors that are applicable to management levels above the field user; however, some of the factors identified in the system safety assessment are operational in nature and do apply to all levels of the organization. These operational factors are presented later in this article.

Common hazards associated with a helicopter mission –crew fitness, distraction, mission focus, communication, weather, take-off or landing weights, landing areas, other aircraft, wire and other obstructions – are 5 |K A I Z E N ’ S O P E R A T I O N S & R E S E A R C H E N T I T Y

identified in the system safety analysis and controls are provided to mitigate the hazard(s).

Pre-flight project planning for low-level flights and other special use activities is naturally more intensive because the aircraft and crew are placed in a less forgiving environment. The identification of these specific hazards should provide a system of standards and alternatives that crewmembers can use to maintain situation awareness and develop a better foundation for decision making. Risk assessment and mitigation is a continual process that should utilize all resources available to the helicopter crew. Tactical planning provides a means whereby you project your thoughts into the future in a multidimensional mental model that will allow you to anticipate and influence events before they occur. This also provides you with tools that prepare you for contingencies rather than reacting to events as they occur. In doing so you attempt to influence the destiny of your operation through proactive means rather than being dependent on external drivers for success. Planning Every decision, you make will be affected by the objectives that are the basis of your mission, and your ability to anticipate and influence events before they occur...

The objective has to be clear.

Simple objectives are usually better, but to be effective they need the following: • They must be measurable on some quantifiable scale so you can ultimately determine whether the mission was successful.

• They must be achievable. This doesn’t mean it has to be easy. If you’re going to mobilize resources, nothing degrades their abilities, motivation, energy or enthusiasm quicker than to give them an impossible task.

• They must support the overall goals of the organization.

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Cloud Computing – Will it take over?

BY SHALINI JHA

The rush to cloud computing is taking off, but why? Doesn’t anyone remember time sharing back in the early 70s when computers were just too expensive to own and maintain? Are the issues back then no longer with us, like bandwidth, security, and predictable costs? Computer processing cycles are a fraction of what they were 30 years ago so why are the cloud vendors becoming so numerous and so popular? Are they taking advantage of the fact they many companies may have no idea what processing, monitoring and maintenance costs really are and cloud computing will somehow improve the bottom line?

Cloud computing vendors do have a “story” for all concerns and in some cases, they are right on. However, does the story fit your situation? Not all applications are created equal. A call centre with thousands of end users located in one location cannot be compared to an online store where end users in the millions are “everywhere”. Each application uses a complex combination of web and back end database services, but the entry points are anything but similar. Both of these systems require high availability and disaster recovery, which automatically is flagged as costly by most IT budgeting managers. Good candidate for the cloud, right? What concerns need to be addressed?

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Concern #1 – Responsiveness/Reliability Most corporate access to the Internet is rarely less than a T1, but that’s nowhere near the internal Ethernet speeds of corporate data networks. Compare this to our current Interstate highway system.

San Francisco and New York City are extremely concentrated work and entertainment centres. They offer just about anything you could ever imagine, except easy, quick and cheap access. Tunnels and bridges built more than half a century ago limit getting in and out of those cities. Mega infrastructure providers like Amazon, Google and many others including Microsoft are apparently extremely reliable but access is limited to the connection speed at the end user’s location. For millions of remote users using the internet, the “bridges” are many and fast. For the corporate commuter, the bridge is limited by simultaneous users (i.e., cars and lanes of traffic). Collisions and stalls are a possibility.

Will your application requirements withstand the bottleneck? Will the money saved in infrastructure hardware be outweighed by inefficiencies in call centre agents navigating from page to page? Will you even be able to measure these statistics?

Concern #2 – Cost It wasn’t that long ago there seemed to be a server or two per application. Even the latest and greatest IP based phone systems were now running on Intel based platforms and companies purchased servers a dozen at a time. A new application called for redundant production devices, and then there were staging, beta, testing and development servers. A new Microsoft release most likely required a couple of extra lab machines in order to get the IT staff up to speed. Capital expenditures were eating away at the bottom line not to mention the added utility costs in keep these devices powered and cooled. The time was ripe for virtualisation and VMWare hit the nail on the head. The bare metal server technology introduced around 2005 allowed companies to consolidate multiple hardware devices into a single device with multiple virtual servers. The need to purchase dozens of “boxes” each time a new application was introduced was literally gone.

That was the good news.

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The bad news was training and coming up to speed on this new technology was not going to come cheap, but anyone with a vision could see that the long-term benefits were going to be worth it. This of course assumed no “short cuts” were taken in the transition to the virtual environment, like monitoring resources and disaster recovery. Those that did not make the conversion for one reason or another may see the cloud as their saviour. Even virtualisation implementers may see the added complexity too much for their IT budget.

Moving the problem offsite does not make the problem go away, it just changes its location. You still need to monitor your applications, and you still need to justify costs. Capital Expenditures that were written off and buried in a company’s assets will be replaced with invoices for services rendered in terms of CPU speeds and gigabytes per month. How will those numbers be charged off to various departments? This sounds a lot like timesharing back in the seventies. If you do not know how to do charge backs now, it could get worse.

Concern #3 – All or Nothing Virtualisation and Cloud Computing moves are not all or nothing initiatives; however, the closer you get to “all”, the better the return on investment. Keep in mind that there will always be a baseline cost associated with the technology regardless of applications moved. This will include, but is not limited to, additional IT training and monitoring tools. Make sure you know your existing true costs before making any decisions because it will be very difficult to determine if you’ve arrived if you do not know where you started.

Concern

#4

–

In-House

can

provide

the

Same

Service

Can they? Does IT have the resources? A new online store accessible to millions 24×7 can be built, but when? Unless you already have the “big pipes” and a 24x7x365 operation, you are looking at a considerable investment, not to mention the time required to build such a facility. Virtualisation is not going to solve the bandwidth problem; however, a cloud vendor with mega Internet pipes could get you off the ground in a matter of weeks giving you time to analyse the benefits and risks of doing it yourself. Google, Amazon, and eBay did not start off with billion-dollar data centres so why should you? This concern is obviously tied closely with costs mentioned above. Do the math.

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Concern #5 – Security and Privacy Companies install multimillion dollar security systems to thwart intruders yet according to laptopthefts.org, 32% of all data breaches were the results of stolen laptops, cell phones or other portable media devices. Hacking only accounted for 14% of all breaches. Chances are the security level at a cloud vendor exceeds anything installed at your location.

Encryption is key to any application requiring “for your eyes only” protection; however, many applications today do not implement real time encryption because of the performance hit on the application. Encryption is often limited to login or credit card transactions, which is where hackers concentrate their efforts by spoofing many of the popular online banking or shopping sites within a bogus email. The location of the application (cloud or in-house) has little impact on security levels with this “problem” and the owner of this becomes the challenge of the application developer, not the infrastructure.

Summary Cloud computing will change the way we think about new applications; however, it is not an automatic fit for saving money on existing infrastructures.

It needs to be analysed and thought through independent of vendor marketing brochures and promises. They are not in this business for the fun of it. They are there to make a profit just like you. They may be able to save you a bundle, but you need to do the calculations and make the final call, not them. Take your time and do it right.

Will cloud computing take over? Are you ready for it? It has a long way to go before it takes over.

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CAD: -COMPUTER AIDED DESIGN BY JATIN MEHTA

Computer Aided Design (CAD) is a revolutionary invention in the field of operations. CAD is a computer-based tool that enables the user to visualize an idea in 2-dimensions or 3-dimensions. CAD makes the use of computer program to create graphical representation of various objects in 3D. This designing tool has a great importance in designing and manufacturing and is widely used by engineers, designers and architects in wide range of industries.

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This tool enables user to learn more about the product or parts to be used in designing an end product in a graphical. This makes it easy for the designers to study and formulate the shape, size and dimensions of a product. In product industries, CAD is used mainly for the creation of 3D solid and surface designs or 2Dvector-based drawings of physical component. This helps in rectifying any designer flaw before building the product.

CAD is incorporated in many of the educational institutes as a part of curriculum as it is being widely used in engineering, jewellery, automobile, buildings, auto parts, space shuttles and many more.

Benefits of CAD: • Use of CAD can help in lowering product development cost.

• CAD helps in improving the productivity and accuracy in designing process.

• CAD helps in improving of quality of the product by reducing flaws in design process.

• CAD helps in product’s faster time to market.

• CAD helps in speeding up the design process.

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ABOUT US:

The word “Kaizen”, where “Kai” = change “Zen” = good, simply means “change for better”. In English Kaizen is typically applied to measures for implementing continuous improvement. It is an approach to activity organisation based on common sense, self-discipline, order and economy and is a strong contributor and fundamental part of a lean production process model in lean manufacturing. Kaizen- The Official Operations Club of IBS Hyderabad believes in relishing in the essence of "Constant Change and Evolvement" and hence we, as an organization work willingly for the betterment of the student community. KORE- Kaizen’s Operations and Research Entity, one of our primary wing which flaps to cater to the needs of students and motivate them to soar high by polishing their technical competencies. KORE’s area of expertise includes Case Based Research, Consultancy, Live Projects and Workshops.

LAKSHYA, an initiative taken by KORE primarily focuses on the concepts of operations management and various articles based on the day to day operations and logistics of an organisation -

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LALIT SINGH

LAKSHYA is an academic print and is not for any commercial sale. Reliability and Responsibility, for sources of data for the article vests with the respective authors. Please feel free to drop in your suggestions at kaizenclub.ibs@gmail.com KORE: Kaizen’s Operations & Research Entity.

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