Maintenance Command provides quality maintenance support to operational units of IAF

The vision of Maintenance Command (MC) is to provide “efficient systems’ sustenance for air operations”. The base repair depots (BRDs) under Maintenance Command provide total product support, maintenance, repair and overhaul of all variants of aircraft, radars and missiles, airborne communications systems and ground support equipment of the IAF. The equipment depots (EDs) look after receipt, storage, issue, packaging and transportation functions. Liaison and assistance to Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) and Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) is provided through Air Force Liaison Establishments. The traditional task of maintenance repair and overhaul (MRO) and supply chain has recently been enhanced to include sharing of responsibility with Air Headquarters (HQ) regarding provisioning and procurement of spares for a range of aircraft and systems. The recent approach on an integrated technologistic approach is bringing about a paradigm shift in the way IAF dealt with spares supply and maintenance as two distinct functions.

Air Marshal P.V. Athawale is at present the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief (AOC-in-C). Projects initiated and steered by him such as Integrated Air Command and Control Systems and Air Force Net (AFNET) have culminated recently into force multipliers. Air Marshal Athawale is also known for his pioneering initiatives in avionics software and IT in the IAF. He has vigorously initiated lean engineering and quality management system refinements for improving productivity of BROs in MC. Information management, e-documentation and outsourcing initiatives are the other ventures under the current focus.

The BRDs and EDs have been successfully meeting the challenges of stocking and maintaining the legacy equipment while inducting high technology weapon systems to retain the ‘cutting edge’. Reduction in repair cycle time during overhaul, development of in-house repair schemes for life enhanced aircraft, adoption of newer manufacturing techniques/processes, implementation of newer concepts such as ‘lean engineering’ and improved storage and warehousing to ensure greater availability of existing assets are some of the examples. Pragmatic and rational life extension programmes along with midlife upgradation to ensure higher life cycle of assets are pursued as a rule at MC units rather than an exception.

Lean Engineering practices introduce efficiency intensive production procedures and minimise waste in production, repair, overhaul and logistics processes. Quality and flight safety enhancement have been the key result areas assigned to BRDs. Accordingly, a special drive was initiated by the Maintenance Command last year. All BRDs and major EDs, which are already ISO certified, took up the challenge of refining the quality management system (QMS) and the requirements perceived by top level in-house inspection teams.