SERVICE on
DEMAND YOUR HANGAR. CESSNA FACTORY SERVICE.
story: steven ludlow | photography: cessna visual media group YOU MIGHT CONSIDER AN ON-DEMAND Citation Service Center operating out of your hangar a revolutionary idea, but Mark Paolucci would disagree with you. Paolucci, senior vice president of customer service at Cessna, sees the company’s new ServiceDirect initiative as the next logical progression in a disciplined evolutionary process. In 2007, Cessna prototyped its first Mobile Service Unit (MSU) to provide aircraft-on-ground (AOG) support to customers within a day’s drive of its base of operations in Texas. The MSU is a full-sized service truck, equipped to handle a variety of maintenance and diagnostic functions. The self-contained truck, with a ground power unit (GPU) and compressor, is also outfitted with hydraulic power, jacks for every model of Cessna Citation, a Tommy lift capable of removing engines, an extensive technical library and select replacement parts. Manned by two Cessna-trained technicians, the MSU can handle everything from light to medium maintenance and repairs. The program was well received for its AOG response, but Paolucci and his team continually sought more customer input. And that’s when, as Paolucci put it, “we became enlightened.” They saw that scheduled MSU visits became nearly as common as unscheduled ones and realized that customers were seeing cost savings and convenience in using the MSU for routine maintenance. Paolucci said that initially the cost benefits of using the MSU seemed to be in the fuel expenses, wear on the aircraft and— perhaps most important—time saved by not traveling to the nearest Citation Service Center. All of this more than offset the nominal mileage and deployment fee of the MSU. But owners who operate their own service departments also realized that using the MSU could minimize or even eliminate costly 54 | www.cessna.com