Those of you that are married or have been know that one of the most difficult areas of agreement is: where do we spend our money? In fact, I would venture a guess that there are discussions as to whose money it is in the first place. Trust me, as one whose marriage lasted only 31 years, I am far from an expert in this realm. But, when it comes to airplane maintenance, I am sure you will agree that divorce is not an option for solving the material expenditure decisions.
Should these decisions be left to the maintenance and/or M&E departments or do these decisions belong to the finance people? Since material is the largest part of an aircraft maintenance budget, it is the one that receives the most scrutiny from management, especially in today’s economic environment where much of the focus is paid to justifying the aircraft’s operating costs.
There are two sides to this story and I am wondering how the person that does the work feels about this issue. Maybe you don’t care, but I don’t see that since the right parts and tools are essential for doing a professional job.
The one side is that maintenance should control material acquisition. From my point of view, this is the way it should be because finance guys don’t know the idiosyncrasies of maintenance, approved parts, suitable substitute parts, inventory requirements, and planned maintenance events, to name a few of the areas necessary for quality and efficiency.
On the other hand, maintenance personnel normally do not have a grasp of accounting principles, present and future value, budget models, etc. Maintenance might overload inventory for the “rainy day,†spend too much with a favored vendor, and not keep adequate track of cash flow.
So what it comes down to is the same as what it takes to make a successful marriage: give and take. Nontechnical people should not make technical decisions and those inexpert should not make financial decisions in the world of finance and budgets.