Operations and maintenance departments at airports must rely on each other to ensure a safe, secure, and efficient operation of an airport. Yet while operations and maintenance departments need to work together, they don’t necessarily have a clear understanding of each other’s responsibilities, which can sometimes lead to counterproductive working relationships. While FAR Part 139 can help define work priorities at an airport, there are a myriad of other activities that dictate how and when work will get done from preventive maintenance to repairs to emergency response. Many factors can influence work relationships. As an example, airport organizational structures may have operations and maintenance reporting to different people, leading to competing priorities for day-to-day responsibilities; this may not be conducive to creating a collaborative environment. Therefore, research is needed to identify strategies that airport management can use to foster a collaborative environment between operations and maintenance departments.

 

The objective of this research is to develop guidance for airports to create a collaborative environment between operations and maintenance departments. This guidance should include (1) tools to help airports recognize issues that are counterproductive to collaborative environments, (2) strategies and recommendations to create a collaborative environment between airport operations and maintenance departments,  (3) benefits and risks of strategies and recommendations, and (4) a list of relevant resources.

Accomplishment of the project objective will require at least the following tasks.

 

 

STATUS: This has been published as Report 92: Creating a Collaborative Environment Between Airport Operations and Maintenance Departments.  An executive summary and the contractor's final report is also available.