In our operation we have 5 FULL TIME staff employed in the interrogation of Flight Data Monitoring. As flight crew, we have received numerous memos stating that the purpose of FDM is to monitor and report trends and it is NOT to be used for disciplinary purposes.
(a) either yours is a big operation and they are very busy
(b) they do it all manually
(c) they are doing something altogether other than FDR work
Seriously, though, once the readout analysis is set up to be done largely automatically on a PC, filtering for exceedances is a pretty straightforward exercise.
Sounds a bit like your folk are missing the point of the exercise's value.
At our airline FDM is being used for several years now, and we do get regular information on the analysis of the data.
.. which is the idea of the game. If the line folk's attention is drawn to unidentified instances/frequencies of this and that undesired exceedance, then there is some chance that the message will get through and folk will be more likely to toe the flight standards party line.
Although not the prime mover, those who might otherwise be cowboys are more likely to be conservative if they know that the system does, if fact, have the means to detect gross exceedances and, indeed, there should be an agreed set of protocols to address this sort of concern.
How long, or over how many flights, is FDR material stored on modern a/c before the data is downloaded?
Depends on the box and what you are storing. For instance, the aircraft fleet installation with which I am involved typically stores 80-120 hours of operation. Downloads are done manually to a PC at whatever frequency we might choose within that time frame ... typically to suit routine maintenance activities.