Creativity

Creativity has contracted a bad rap recently. Some have gotten into trouble for being too creative. This includes those who have gone to prison for creative accounting and those who got creative in areas that do not require creativity (i.e., “I’ll drive the ship closer to shore so people can have a better view.”) If you mention creative aircraft maintenance, the FAA inspectors will sit up in their chairs like meerkats looking for signs of FAR violations. However, creativity can be accomplished in the aircraft maintenance world without incensing the local FAA (or other regulatory authorities, for that matter). 

First, why do we, as aircraft mechanics, get creative? Let’s look on the negative side of this question before venturing into the positive. Being creative in aircraft maintenance is typically a self-serving endeavor. On some occasions, we put forth effort toward something that will not benefit us directly but this is typically not the case. We do things that save us time, require less effort or reduce our anxiety and stress, either internally or externally induced.

You have two hours of work left, the aircraft is due to depart in one hour and you need to shave time. If I don’t have to remove all the ducting as the maintenance manual states, it will be easier to remove and replace this part (reduced effort). A person may get creative with the maintenance tasks to meet the mission of an on-time departure which is an example of an internally-induced anxiety. A technician might be confronted by the VP of maintenance, emphatically telling you that the aircraft you are working on better be done in 20 minutes. This is an example of an externally-induced stress.

Those are some examples of why we get creative with our maintenance efforts. Those same self-serving forces can also drive positive creativity. People generally are more apt to be creative if they see some personal benefit or positive consequences, or if it involves avoidance of negative consequences for the effort (i.e., “What’s in it for me?”).

The Bra

In Afghanistan, there is a Forward Operating Base (FOB) that is susceptible to hail storms erupting without warning. The technicians at AAR Airlift based there were tired of changing the upper cockpit windows on their S61 helicopters because of hail damage. As the resulting frustration from continually changing the upper cockpit windows, the crew at the FOB devised a protective device they coined the“Bra.” (See Photo No. 1 of an S61 without the Bra and Photo No. 2 with the Bra.) For lack of a better term, the crew scrounged materials and had a local merchant sew the Bra and install grommets for a total cost of about $100 each.

What’s in it for them? They saved themself time and frustration in continually doing the same thing repeatedly. As soon as the aircraft comes back from its mission and maintenance is accomplished, the Bra is installed, regardless of the current weather conditions. An unintended beneficiary to those actions was the organization, which captured cost savings and loss in flight time in not replacing the windows.

As a side note, when I asked who came up with the idea of the Bra, nobody claimed sole ownership. The answer was always, “we did.” This was truly a team effort. Here you have creativity in aircraft maintenance that will not attract the ire of any regulatory or authority body. This is positive creativity in aircraft maintenance. It can be done.

Part kitting

Part kitting is another example. This grew out of the wasted time and effort by mechanics who continually look up the same attaching hardware every time they ordered a part. It’s much more convenient to order an IDG and get all the O-rings and related hardware that must be replaced with the IDG than to look up and order each piece individually. There is also less likelihood of not ordering something that is required.

Kitting can go beyond parts to inspection kitting. Wouldn’t it be nice to do an engine check and have all the parts and tooling at hand in a box or roll-away, instead of repeatedly going back to the stock room or tool room.? Wouldn’t it be convenient to do a tire change out of a cart that had the proper jack, wrenches, tire and nitrogen source right there and ready to go? A sheet metal job with everything plane side to expedite repairs? What about an electronic maintenance manual that you have with you at the aircraft?

What’s in it for you

When you hear the term “What’s in it for me?”, don’t look upon that phrase as some defiant act but one of human nature. As a manager, you want to promote creativity in the right direction and hopefully affect positive change. You have only so much influence and you have to recognize that the preponderance of creative thought is with the workforce. You’re outnumbered by your change agents. You can only generate an atmosphere that is conducive to creativity where it can grow and flourish, and then you facilitate the process when you see it blossom. At the same time, you need to temper the creativity so it is always pointed toward positive direction.

“What’s in it for me?” can be a personal desire or a team desire, as with the AAR Airlift crew at the FOB in Afghanistan. They collectively said “this is enough” and created a means to avoid future frustration. Individual desire and team desire is fraught with pitfalls for managers who have a personal agenda or who don’t recognize a team.

One mistake is when a manager has a personal desire that the workforce doesn’t share. Why should the workers put forth effort to benefit another, especially if they are not going to share in any of the benefit? No payback?

Another mistake is when a manager tries to affect change as benefiting the team but fails to recognize that there is no team. Having a group of people who work together for the same organization doesn’t mean that you have a team. It may be a fragmented group of individuals without cohesiveness.

Another mistake is when the manager and the workforce both see benefit of the change but the management fails to obtain workforce buy-in. How receptive would the AAR Airlift crew the FOB in Afghanistan have been if a corporate guy came down and told then they must install a window pad every time the aircraft was going to be parked? If they were never consulted and were totally left out of the loop, how do you think it would have been received? I would venture to say that their enthusiasm level would not be as high as it was when they pursued this on their own. There is a reluctance to be enthusiastic in something that you gave no input nor had developmental participation. In other words, it is not their decision to change, they were being told to change. The very term “forced consensus” seems oxymoronic.

We Americans are a fiercely independent lot but we seek social interaction. We typically aren’t told to be creative but we have been told to change. We like to be creative; it gives us the ability to express our intellectual freedom and provides an internal satisfaction of accomplishment. We don’t like to be told to change; this removes our freedom of choice. Creativity is our choice but change may not be. We cherish our freedom and creativity gives us freedom, whereas change has the appearance of limiting our freedom. We don’t resist change but we resist being changed. Creativity is good, if done properly.

You get that feeling that this can’t be by accident. No company can be that detached from the customer. The airlines must have a master planning department where the employees are ex-Candid Camera writers whose sole purposes are to devise ways to upset passengers. A well-to-do friend of mine who always flies first class between Chicago and Hawaii was given a plastic fork and knife with a rather well-done steak dinner in flight. There has to be someone with a hidden camera on board, filming the passengers struggling to cut their steaks. Again, this can’t be by accident; it’s too coordinated, too well planned. Flying is no longer an experience; it’s just plain transportation. Maybe the airlines are thinking, “What the heck? The spark in this flying thing is gone, so let’s have some fun with it while we can.”

Progress

It has been said that out of chaos comes progress. I don’t see it happening. There are occasions where chaos only breeds more chaos. Managers are taking the fun out of dysfunctional. The longer we are exposed to poor service, the more likely we are to accept it as the new norm. The paradigm shifts. Have you ever walked into a room that stunk, but after you had been in there for a while, you didn’t notice the stink anymore? Same principle.

What do you do? When you receive bad service, you say something about it. It might fall on deaf ears and nothing might change, but you at least have expressed your opinion. One person can make a difference. You have to be persistent.

I still am confronted with those magic moments of making a difference once in a while. On a two-hour flight in coach on Continental Airlines just prior to the merger, the flight attendant asked if I wanted a sandwich. I was kind of hungry and reluctantly said, “yes,” wondering if I had to take out a second mortgage for this sandwich. I asked her how much I owed as I reached for my wallet. “There’s no charge, it’s free,” said the flight attendant. Free? You’re kidding.

I met my magic moment — but sadly, it’s gone now.

Patrick Kinane joined the Air Force after high school and has worked in aviation since 1964. Kinane is a certified A&P with IA and holds an FAA license and commercial pilot certificate with instrument rating. He earned a bachelor of science degree in aviation maintenance management, MBA in quantitative methods, master of science degree in education and Ph.D. in organizational psychology. He has been involved with 121 carriers and held positions from aircraft mechanic to director of maintenance. Kinane currently works as senior quality systems auditor for AAR Corp. and adjunct professor for DeVry University instructing in organizational behavior, total quality management (TQM) and critical thinking. PlaneQA is his consulting company that specializes in quality and safety system audits and training. Speaking engagements are available with subjects in critical thinking, quality systems and organizational behavior. For more information, visit www.PlaneQA.com.