Sunday, July 22, 2012

AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE COMPETENCIES (SKILLS) DEVELOPMENT FOR EASA PART 66 STUDENTS

The award of aircraft maintenance license is made based on the competencies of the applicants. The requirements include the basic knowledge requirements, the skills and work experience. This posting discuss the issue involve in developing the skills components need for aircraft engineer.

1. Introduction
Competencies for a specific job are the cluster of skills set required to perform the JOB effectively according to a given performance criteria. In aircraft maintenance, the performance criteria are set by the authorities and the aircraft manufacturers the like of maintenance manual or CAIP

2. Competency Development Model
a. It is imperative that the skill development processes start from the day the trainees join the Training School  and ended on their graduation. It is frustrating and counterproductive to view the LOG BOOKS of final year students with BLANK entry for BASIC SKILLS.

The model consists of 3 basic components,
- competency plan,
- competency development
- assessment and recording.

The above components have to be managed by the Approved Training School. The authorities, like DCAM are more interested on the assessment and recording. They are less concerned on the planning development, as their roles as a licensing agency is to ensure the standards and requirements are met.

3. DCAM Requirements:
DCAM is very clear and specific on the Knowledge Requirements as detailed in the AN1101/Part 66. However the skills components are open and best guided by the Logbook CAP 741. There are subject the interpretation and experiences of the ATO.

4. The broad requirements are given under AN1201 para 6.4 :
a. Basic Practical Training and Validation
   i. The practical training element shall cover the practical use of common tooling/equipment, the disassembly/assembly of a representative selection of aircraft parts and the participation in representative maintenance activities being carried out relevant to the particular modules such as Modules 7, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 of Appendix 1 specified in AN No. 1101.
  ii. The skills and experiences acquired by the trainees at the ATO or maintenance organisation shall be validated by a Validator.
  iii. The evidence of validation shall be documented using a document approved by DGCA.

 b. Basic Practical Assessment shall: i. be conducted by an approved practical assessor and carried out in a manner that is acceptable to DGCA; and ii. ensure evidence of skill and experience acquisition and determine whether the student is competent at using tools and equipment and working in accordance with maintenance manuals. The student shall also be assessed on their situational awareness ability.

 5. PROPOSED METHOD:
There are 4 interrelated processes, Planning, Development , Assessment and Recording.

 i. The planning to be linked to the modules, OJT, the logbook and the assessment processes.
ii. Example.

Year
Modules/ OJT
Expected Skills
Log Book to Fill/ Record
Assessment
1
Foundation –
 Basic Workshop
1.Use basic tools
2.micrometer
a. 2.2.B2
b.2.2.A1
When to do assessment





1
Foundation
Safety
Safety awareness
a. 2.2.A1
When to do assessment




                                 
6. PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION 
    a. Concept Discussion and agreement 
    b. Processes and time line 
    c. Resource allocation

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

WELCOMING NEW STUDENTS

Yesterday, my school was welcoming 40 new students enrolled for Aircraft Maintenance License. This was my presentation to the group..

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On completion of the course, the students are targeted to get the licenses in the categories of B1-1 and B1-3. These licenses correspond to the fixed wing aircraft with turbine engines and helicopter licenses with turbine engines.
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The companies to work for ranged from airlines, the MRO and manufacturing facilities. The main employers in Malaysia are MAS, AirAsia and SAE or Sepang Aircraft Engineering.

The choice of employers is open.The license is widely accepted and Malaysia License has been accepted in Europe, Middle East and Australia. The small city state of Singapore is taking Malaysian as the preferred workers due to many factors including cultural, historical and legislatives.
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Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Tracking of Students' Performance


My EASA 147 school is situated in Malaysia. We are proud to be producing over 200 qualified aircraft maintenance engineer in various fields. Our success is mainly as the direct result of hard works by our staff and our policy of selecting a matured students for our program.

Our process model for the training was designed for students holding at least a diploma in technical subjects.That means they are already have the fundamental knowledge and sufficient discipline to pursue the course of study. However with the recent change of policy, we are currently accepting students with SPM or equivalents and the students performance in the internal examinations has shown a sharp drop.

The failure rate for diploma holders used to hover around 80%, however for SPM holders, it has sharply drop to around 60%. As we were comfortable before, we are pushing for solution.

Thursday, July 5, 2012

SCHOOL's ONGOING PROJECTS

There are some projects which are considered ongoing for EASA 147 school. The documents state the requirements of the school:

1- Continuous Learning.
It is a requirement stated in the regulation that the trainers need to update their knowledge. The amount training is 4 days for every 2 years, averaging 2 days per year. The ruling is rather lenience on the subjects, the contents and the training methodology. 

2- Qualifying for trainers -
3- Assessment Kits -
4- Course Notes
5- Examination Centers
6- Questions Bank
7- Students Performance Tracking