Bolty McBolt

Probably a good reason for that and not all good.
Ask around at Bexley and you will hear plenty about JHAS and guys needing support..

I am not saying I know JHAS is a bad place to work or better than my place of work.
One thing I do know from all the people I know whom work for different airlines around the world. You end up working for the same kind of people and its the same style of management everywhere.
And well all know what means. Engineering is a very expensive inconvenience and will be treated as such.

Romulus

Perhaps. But the eternal struggle is a recurring theme in all good tragedy so perhaps I'm just a tragic.

Perhaps. Perhaps not.

My basic theory is that there's no such thing as over communication and whilst that can be a pain in the arse for both sides people are free not to read posts here or talk to me on site.

Equally I'll try an give people as much time as I can to meet their expectations of communication.

Feel free not to talk to me if I offend you that much.


Can't say I think I have ever "bagged" Qantas, I think we can do things differently, I honestly think we can do things more efficiently and we can actually grow the aviation maintenance/engineering business in Australia and drag back some of the overseas work.

That means change, much of which the former Ansett guys took up on their own pre the JH purchase. We bring some external engineering thoughts and commercality due to the diversity of our business whereas aviation engineers have, by definition, only seen what goes on in a very isolated part of the market. That's not a harsh thing to say, it's just the reality that in the wider engineering world that there are some very different thoughts and methods of doing things.


well at least you did't call me old!

Feel free to talk to me and I'll even make the coffee. Plenty of others do and I don't think anyone has suffered as a result of it.


Blatant need? I appreciate your concern for my mental health but I suspect your Psych101 is a little outdated. I enjoy reading here, it gives me a certain opinion, it gives me an insight into some key concerns. Equally I don't automatically believe what is said here, I'll do my own investigation.

Oh dear. Diatribe? Feel good rhetoric?

I'm so hurt.

Or perhaps not.

Maybe you need to examine your own insecurities?


Ah, if only you knew. I blew the chance to be a big cheese a long time ago, definitely too opinionated and a thorough pain in the arse, permanently branded "heretic" etc.

So be it, that's who I am, I can live with the fact and with myself. I'll never be David Cox, equally as a result I get to do a lot of stuff simply because it appeals to me and then the more normal corporate types geet to review my thoughts and if they like it we go from there.

Most of my concepts get binned. So be it, 1 in 10 make it and we have a lot of fun.

And yes, I actually really enjoy my time on the floor at JHAS. Feel free to walk off if you don't like me, I'd prefer you discuss the issues but I also accept that isn't the way everyone likes it.

maybe, maybe not.

* Edited to clear up my quote tags

Romulus

If only I was an uber manager.....

Hopefully most of them talk to me on site, plenty do and by now it should be understood that in confidence means in confidence. I've had a couple of full on frank discussions with people and there have been no recriminations. A person who stands up for themself in a logical and sensible manner is worth plenty.

I'm certainly no agony aunt, and I'm not going to go all touchy feely about everything, equally there's a whole industry I am just starting to understand and I have always found that the operational team are the best place to get informed. We've got plenty to do if we're going to be successful and the only way I know to do that is to talk to anyone who wants information.

Just my opinion, feel free to tell me I'm wrong.

* Edited to clear up errors in my quote tags

Romulus

Feel free to go into more details Bolty.


Again, feel free to go with details.

One of the problems with broad assertions backed up by, well, nothing in this particular case, is that nothing can be done about it.


True.

But how much more expensive is poor quality engineering?

That's why we're never going to be the cheapest in up front price, we'll compete on life cycle costs.

Romulus

OK, I'll bite, my interest is piqued (bet you didn't think that would happen..... MUCH).

What's the goss?

numbskull

Romulus you MAY be able to "do things more efficiently" than Qantas in the long term. In the short term I believe you have no hope.

The Qantas Base Maintenance that I once new could achieve anything and, all things being equal, I would back their quality AND turntime against any MRO in the world.

That quality and turntime is definetely deteriorating in the last few years. However that is not the fault of the workers at the coal face but is a calculated decision by management to cut costs.

I have in depth knowledge of the engineering work practices of Qantas(20 yrs worth) and for the last 18 months I have seen how other companies engineering services operate in a different (but similiar) industry. I'm talking about companies like Thales, Rolls-Royce, Kellog Brown & Root, Honeywell.

I can assure you that Qantas of 5 years ago was way more efficient than these companies in my experience and even now with numerous quality and turn time issues QF would still probably s$%t on them.

I do appreciate your informative posts. It is refreshing to see a manager communicating effectively.

However, I have still not received an email to say that you have even received my application (2 now the first one over 5 weeks ago). It appears that your organisation operates at the same glacial speed as other large companies such as QF,Thales, Rolls-Royce, Kellog Brown & Root, Honeywell etc.

Maybe you could show us some of the JHAS effeciency and flexibility and post a little bit less on PPrune and help Jenny out with the job application replies.

lucky7

I've got it...How about Romulus work for QF engineering Management? That way everyone will be "Happy"..my two cents worth.

Romulus

Based on my understanding of block hour costs and the difference between VB and QF I beg to differ. That's not to be argumentative, that's to apply my no BS belief.

But then, I guess that's my job.

So perhaps we can be more efficient....

Based on the block hour costs it seems there's less cost cutting than you would think.

You may not like me saying it but the hard figures say something very different. That's not to be confrontational, that's to give you a bit of insight into how we came to our decision to go with the AAES opportunity

Well, effective to some, Wingers seems to think it's a waste....

Will check it out.

Romulus

Coz I'd probably be no better than your current guys, I'd get frustrated and you'd all hate me.

Or something like that.



Plus I'd probably take the easy option and outsource the whole lot to JHAS on day 1 then go off and play golf whilst counting my millions in incentive payments.....

numbskull

Romulus, I have no idea what "Block hour costs" are.

But if QF's block hour costs are not coming down and they are having turn time and quality issues (where they weren't previously), then the only ones to blame are the management(who predominately have little Line or Heavy Maintenance experience).

More likely they are playing with the numbers to get the outcome they want. A good accountant can turn a $100M profit into a $100M loss (just ask James Packer).

It looks to me like QF management are busting their arse to outsource to you (probably to get their incentive bonuses as you say). They just need to justify it to the general public and the only way they can do that is to blame unions/high costs etc(whether that is the case or not is immaterial)

Anyway good luck when you win the contract. It will be challenging introducing a new type and I'm sure QF will expect compensation for any shortcomings in performance KPI's.

Romulus

Effectively it is similar to the maintenance cost per flight hour excpet it uses block hours which reflect the point at which chocks are pulled away to the point they are put in place at the destination. Apparently the concept is to encompass taxi time and a few other items in order to prevent manipulation of data by using actually flight hours.

Without getting in to too much detail that I am not prepared to put out in public QF is running at a seriously higher cost than their competitors.


As a general concept I don't disagree with you, after all, managers are there to well, manage. Yes they need to work on a whole raft of issues,and yes the front line troops get the blame, and again without trying to be confrontational but keep in line with the no BS communications policy, there is some truth in that but the majority of the issue is management's responsibility.

well, that's the common perception anyway. Good accountants can only do what's allowed by law. And that's financial accounting. Management accounting for the purposes of running a business is certainly more flexible as there are no external reproting requirements, that allows specific allocations to be made to cover events (eg how do you allocate overheads to each individual activity or cost centre or whatever) which in turn allows a sensible activity based costing model to be prepared.

Then there needs to be an apples v apples comparison made (to the best of one's ability).

I'd be happy, they're certainly busting our balls at the moment.

Sooner or later the truth usually outs.

And we'll expect a reward for outperformance so the question, as usual, comes down to where do we set the bencmark. Then we back our guys and our processes to deliver.

Flugzeugmechaniker

Are JHAS still recruiting? I have a B1 and am currently looking for a change in employment.

Redstone

Fleet age must impact on this figure. I assume that if you compare Qf to VB you should only use 737NG fleets (to keep an apples/apples comparison) . The older the beast the more dollar hungry they become to maintain.

satos

You sound like a broken record when you say that.

Romulus

Yep. The really good thing about 73 fleets is that there is a huge amount of performance data available for them. Given the predicatability of their maintenance demand algorithms can be developed to quite accurately predict what will be required across the entire fleet (law of averages etc).

Romulus

Yep. And as some can attest I have followed through whenever the information has been provided.

Equally confidences are respected so I'm not going to blather about looking up Fred Nerk's CV and telling all of pprune where his application is up to.

Feel free to believe or disbelieve as you see fit.

mavrik1

Romulus,
Since Mel will be your new Maint Hub. Are you guys looking to pick up 3rd party work in the International line Maint, arena in Melbourne as well. Have you researched your competition your up against apart from QF
once you have established ie, Cathay Pacific, AMSA/SIA, Emirates Engineering. All with Extreme low cost base and high output.

Romulus

Yes on all coutns, the problem for the other guys is that they need volume to occupy the guys or costs get driven up. If you employ somebody 8 hours a day and they look after 3 aircraft visits then you have a lot of unproductive time. If you've got a hangar where they can fill in the extra hours then you have a competitive advantage as you don't have the charge for all the downtime.

Given the way were structured we think we can take good advantage of that and win teh work.

Of course, as Wingers puts it, I can't win. SO perhaps I won't be able to....

mavrik1

There is a way you could get all there work secure with JHAS overnight, wouldn't you like to know. I know!

TheHoff

Hey Romulus,

How's recruiting going for Tiger's line maintanance? Are you planning on having LAME's based at other ports yet to cover there turnarounds or will you have flying spanners out of Melbourne? Also if and when you get the A380 line work how do you plan on keeping the guy's occupied at ports like Brissy and Sydney if they only have 1 or 2 aircraft a day?

Keep up the good work.