Maintenance and Manufacturing Staff Instructions (MSI) No. 17

Subject:

1. Purpose

1.1 The purpose of this MSI is to provide Activity Reporting and Standards System (ARASS) task planning criteria based on the output of annual national ARASS workshops and historical ARASS planning data.

2. Background

2.1 Two Airworthiness workshops were held with the Regional Managers, Airworthiness, in July and November 1996 to redefine ARASS tasks and task times pertaining to audits. Previous planning times varied drastically from one region to another, so a group decision was made to establish a National Planning Standard to ensure all regions were planning at the same level; i.e. in accordance the Manual of Regulatory Audits and the frequencies as outlined in the Frequency of Inspection Policy Document.   A subsequent workshop held in January 1998 provided initial validation of a number of the planning times, and in some cases demonstrated the inaccuracy of the established National Planning Standard.

2.2 A further review of the national planning standard for airworthiness audits was conducted in the Fall of 2001.   At this meeting, it was acknowledged that for some audit categories, enough historical data existed to justify amending the established planning standard to reflect the actual numbers in the ARASS data. The regional managers agreed that if data was available per audit category, from all five regions in the ARASS data set for 2000/2001, the NPS figures would be adjusted accordingly. The formula employed to determine the new planning standard is as follows: remove the high and low extremes from the data set, add the remaining three figures and divide by three to achieve an average number. This document reflects these adjustments.

3. Policy Statement

3.1 The regions will utilize the attached planning criteria for the development of their 2002/03 and 2003/04 ARASS planning submissions.  Actual audit completion times will continue to be tracked in ARASS over the next year, which will provide the required database to validate the National Planning Standard and to make future adjustments to the program as required.

3.2 The "National Planning Standard" (NPS) equals the agreed to maximum number of "REQUIRED" days per audit completion, including related travel, as discussed at the ARASS Workshop in Edmonton.

4. Effective Date

4.1 This instruction comes into effect immediately.

5. HQ Contact

5.1 The responsible officer indicated below may be contacted for information regarding this MSI:

Jacqueline Booth-Bourdeau, AARPC
Aircraft Maintenance & Manufacturing
E-mail: boothbj@tc.gc.ca
Phone: (613) 952-7974
Facsimile: (613) 952-3298

D.B. Sherritt
Director,
Maintenance and Manufacturing

[i] Where a 604 operator has an AMO, the AMO will be counted separately in the appropriate group in Block B.

[ii] Where an AOC holder holds more than one (1) certificate, to avoid double counting, count only the highest level of the Certificate (i.e. the highest NPS number). Those commercial AOC holders that have an AMO are to be dealt with in Block A.  Those AMOs accounted for in Block A are not to be counted in Block B.

[iii] Where a company has a certificate in Blocks B, C, D or E, the primary certificate, that is the certificate with the highest NPS number, shall be claimed.  If any single or lesser part of the above organization is audited it should be counted as a mandatory inspection of the highest certificate.

[iv] Where a Flight Training Unit has an AMO, the AMO will be counted separately in the appropriate group.  Where a FTU holds a certificate in Block A, count it only in Block A and do not count it in Block F.