Air India Report (1)

8/12/2019 Air India Report (1)

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Operations & Supply Management

Sec-C; Group-1 Page 1

Project Report On

AIR INDIA

Prepared by:

Mohit Sarda (15)

Shruti Pipalia (32)

Iram Ilyas (46)

Kiran Kumar (49)

Shaurya Singh (51)

Faculty Guide:

Prof. Sashi Sekhar Paramanik


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BACKGROUND

Birth of Air India 29 July 1946 1948 49%-Govt. of India Extra 2% Flag Carrier StatusAir India International First International Flight

8 June 1948 Lockheed Constellation L-749A Malabar Princess Bombay Cairo Geneva London.

Air Corporations Act 1953, 1stAugust Majority stake of Govt. of India Domestic ServicesIndian Airlines International ServicesAir India International Limited

CORPORATE VISION

Vision:

To be among top five Asian airlines in terms of Yield, Profitability,Productivity, Size and Quality

Mission:

Focus on customer satisfaction Grow with emphasis on sustained profitability Provide exciting and satisfying work environment to retain and develop

employees committed to Corporate Vision

Focus on social responsibilityenvironment & communityObjectives:

Achieve unit revenue, unit cost, profitability, productivity and servicelevel targets, based on benchmarked parameters.


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AIRCRAFT OF AIR INDIA

Air India has always been miss-utilizing the available fleet. They need to optimize the

available resources. The air crafts being used on a particular sector should be selected

seeing the traffic, which unfortunately is not being done by Air India. The Maharaja

carrier has a lot of diversification in the type of aircrafts, which can be avoided. Keeping

lesser variety of aero planes in larger numbers significantly reduces the operations cost.

Also, Air India bought a large number of new air crafts instead of going for wet or dry

lease, which increased the fixed cost of the airline. As a remedy, Air India has finally

decided to sell five of its Airbus 747 planes.

The late delivery of purchased aircrafts also added to the mounting losses of the airliner.

Name Owned Leased Seats

Airbus 319 19 5 144

Airbus 319(Mixed confi) 9 10 114+8

Airbus 320-231 8 6 168

Airbus 320-214 4 120+20

Airbus 321 8 12 152+20

Airbus 330-200 2 225+24

Boeing 747-400 3 3(Dry) 385+26+12

Boeing 777-200LR 8 195+35+8

Boeing 777-300ER 9 303+35+4

Boeing 787 Dreamliner 9 238+18

ATR 42-320 7 48 (eco)

CRJ 700 4 70 (Eco)


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AIRLINES AND LEAN MANAGEMENT

Airline operations present a striking dichotomy. Each day, the airlines achieve the

remarkable by safely moving nearly five million people more than 40 million air miles

around the world. Often, however, they fail to deliver on the ordinary. Once the aircraftland, all too many of them taxi to a jet way and waitperhaps for a ground crew to arrive

and open a door or for the end of the traffic caused by another planes maintenance delay.

Even standout, low-cost performers lose bags, keep valuable employees idle, depart late,

and have billions of dollars in chronically underutilized aircraft and other hugely

expensive assets.

These extremes coexist because airlines have historically focused on safety, aircraft

technology, speed, geographic reach, and in-flight service attributes; on distinctive

regulatory constraints and labor issues; and on the unpredictability imposed by weather

and rapidly shifting demand. At the same time, issues such as route structures, excess

capacity, pricing, and yield management compete with operations for the airlines

attention.1As a result, the airlines havent given their operations factors like, industrial-

engineering scrutiny. Great operators in other heavy industries have worked through

these challenges to deliver low costs, high quality, and satisfied customers.

Yet up to 45 percent of an airlines cost structure consists of maintenance, ground

handling, in-flight services, call centers, and aircraft acquisitions (which are influenced

by operational variables like aircraft downtime). One hundred years after the first

powered flight, its time to start looking at the airlines as mature industrial companies andto apply proven manufacturing practices that can streamline their process-intensive

activities. At stake is an opportunity to reduce overall costs dramatically by using labor,

materials, and assets more efficiently, to enhance the reliability of service, and to

strengthen flight safety.

Lean approaches, adopted by numerous industrial and service companies (including

many that are heavily unionized and some, like hospitals and medical-device

manufacturers, that are highly regulated), are well suited to the airlines challenges. As

lean techniques eliminate waste, they also root out the non-standardized work times,

variable team structures, and highly asynchronous work flows that many airlineexecutives now view as unavoidable.

The lean approaches of pioneering airlines have begun with the maintenance shop, which

functions very much as a disassembly-assembly factory and displays a striking degree of

waste and variability. Impressive maintenance results30 to 50 percent improvements in

aircraft and component turnaround times and 25 to 50 percent improvements in

productivity (Figure 1)are encouraging signs for the airlines other operational choke
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points, such as baggage handling, passenger loading, and customer service. Applying the

philosophy and methods of the lean approach also creates new opportunities for

outsourcing and insourcing.

In any industry, companies that adopt lean techniques face difficulties, such as getting

senior management committed to the effort, developing the talent pool to lead it, and

avoiding the "pick-and-choose" lean-tool-kit approach, which in the end fails to address

the root causes of problems. Yet precisely because the lean journey is difficult, the gains

won by airlines that persevere with it are more likely to be truly differentiating and

sustainable than those resulting from more imitable tactics, such as extracting wage

concessions or cutting service. As the industry struggles through the most severe

downturn in its history, now is the time to begin.

Figure 1

When airline executives talk operations, more often than not they focus on the features

that distinguish their industry from others. Yet an airline orders materials just as a factory

does, and it sequences work, deploys workers to specialized tasks, commits itself to

quality levels, and at regular intervals turns out the equivalent of productsserviced and


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airworthy aircraft. Conversely, like airlines, factories face variability when large orders

roll in unexpectedly, equipment breaks down, or snowstorms interrupt supplies.

Underlying lean techniques are four principles: the elimination of waste, the control of

variability, flexibility, and the full utilization of human talent. These principles have

enormous relevance for organizations concerned with safety, customer service, and

unpredictable events such as weather. Companies that embrace lean really begin to see

things differently. Our work with several international carriers and with a European third-

party maintenance provider has provided a glimpse into this tremendous opportunity.

In spite of the strong cost-cutting efforts of the airlines, they still harbor large amounts of

what lean practitioners define as waste: anything that doesnt add value for end

customers. Waste starts with the utilization of aircraft and other kinds of infrastructure,

which often falls below 50 percent. Passengers see a part of this problem in the form of

empty gates, avoidable tarmac delays, and idle planes. Valuable and highly skilled

employees routinely spend a large part of their time on low-value activities or just plain

waiting (Figure 2). The arriving traveler watches in frustration as a baggage carousel

remains empty for 30 minutes because of a lack of handlers. Dozens of stranded travelers

fume while a single clerk processes them. In maintenance hangars, mechanics spend far

more time chasing parts than repairing aircraft. Moreover, airlines struggle to tailor the

level of staffing or the pace of work to their service demands efficientlydespite the

predictability of many tasks, such as the removal of wheels. In some maintenance shops,

20 to 30 percent of the mechanics time is spent in the break area; in others, actual

clocked person-hours are 30 percent lower than scheduled hours.

Standard operating procedures exist, but the airlines generally focus on what regulators

such as the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) require them to do, not on how to

do it efficiently. Thick manuals outline tasks but without standardizing sequences,

processing times, or best practices. Passengers experience this problem firsthand in the

form of check-in and loading procedures that vary from airport to airport or even gate to

gate. The absence of operating standards often breeds inefficiency in spite of workers

best efforts to carry out required tasks and meet regulatory standards. Weve seen two

mechanics using different toolsone half as effective as the otherto remove a panel

from the underside of a fuselage.


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Figure 2

The suitability of lean techniques to meet these and other challenges presents the airlineswith a ray of hope. What exactly would a lean airline operation look like and deliver?

To illustrate the application of lean techniques, well look closely at a single operation

the A-check, analogous in role (but not complexity) to servicing a car. Picture the scene:

an aircraft pulls into a hangar late at night. Schedulers "job-card" the list of tasks to be

performed and coordinate tooling, spare parts, and staffing. Engineers define the person-

hour workloads. Supporting departments and workshops, such as materials management

and avionics, provide parts. As if the number of parties involved didnt generate enough

complexity, many non-routine issues are created by cracks, leaks, system faults, and

extraneous damage (for instance, engine damage from bird strikes). The goal is to wadethrough the surprises and get the plane on the flight line by morning.

A new operating system.

Adopting a lean operating system first requires an organization to search for order in the

demand patterns of its "customer" (in these case, flight operations). When this discipline

is applied to the maintenance shop, only a third of all A-check activities turn out to be

non-routine. Of the non-routine work, nearly a quarter is accounted for by wing


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maintenance, which overwhelmingly involves just four areas (Exhibit 3). Standard

preparations for them transform nearly 20 percent of all non-routine A-check tasks into

routine ones. A better system for replacing light bulbs makes almost 5 percent of all

currently unpredictable A-check operations routine. Most maintenance organizations

already know that non routine work is clustered, but few have reliable records or analysesto make sense of the patterns.

Such knowledge helps an operator create standard tasks and workplace designs. Drawing

on the collective expertise of its mechanics, it could develop standard work routines,

making use of enhanced tools and fixtures, that would substantially increase the

efficiency of their wrench time. During A-checks, for instance, they sometimes lubricate

parts using a two-person, hand-pumped grease gun while a hydraulic model that allows

one person to do the job sits idly in a corner. Arraying such tools at the ready in a highly

organized work space can yield large efficiencies. Pre-staging parts such as replacement

filters eliminates a source of error by ensuring that they wont be overlooked. Mechanics

become surgeons, with all their equipment and tooling arranged carefully ahead of time

and reliable procedures in place to deal with surprises. Simply by eliminating ongoing

searches for parts, tools, and paperwork, a carrier may improve the productivity of its

repair operations by more than 30 percent.

Standardization progresses as operators determine the actual time needed for each task,

along with the sources of variation. Rather than stepping away to find a tool, mechanics

stay by the aircraft and visually signal their tool and part requirements. As they work,

they note any flaw in the process and perfect it for the future.

Well-defined, standard work practices make more rigorous scheduling possible. Standard

completion times and best-quality sequences help operators divide and balance their

workloads so that they can choreograph aircraft movements during nightly A-checks. (In

a carefully scheduled lean system, everyone knows that a 767 will come through the door

Figure 3

at a certain time and will exit, say, two hours and 40 minutes later.) That level of

scheduling rigor helps companies match their staffing levels with work sequences moreaccurately. Meanwhile, demand-based materials replenishmentmade possible by

kanbansignals that directly link upstream activities to actual usagelocks in

replacement parts and minimizes surprises.

Improved information flows and standard job practices combine to make schedules more

stable and introduce an operating pace, formerly a novelty for repair operations. Keeping


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the front line informed is vital, particularly in maintenance shops where aircraft move

slowly and no formal assembly line provides rhythm and discipline. In a lean A-check,

marks on the hangar floor inform the tug operator and the mechanics where a plane will

stop, equipment will be kept, and workers will be deployed. Performance-management

boards close to the aircraft convey the status of each task and thus help the team utilizeresources efficiently and in real time. Workers use these boards, a visual form of

communication involving the whole team, to transfer information on progress rapidly.

Through visual card displays, mechanics can see the pace of a job and learn the job

sequence of the turnaround. The team counts its time-to-completion visually. When the

check is done, the team draws on the boards performance data to see how it could

improve.

ONLINE TICKET

Figure 4

Customized offerings and vast selections are now expected as the norm in consumer-

focused industries. As the percentage of leisure travellers continues to grow, airlines

need to find innovative ways to increase the effective yield from these lower-margin

travellers. Clearly, there is one size fits-all approach to reaching customers, as

Generation Y passengers under 30 years old will have markedly different criteria for an

enjoyable travel experience than parents with toddlers. The online ticketing portal starts


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when a customer logs into a website of ticket booking. He requests the destination and

the date of journey and is then provided with the travel information he is been looking

for. He selects the applicable and the required flights and routes that is displayed. The

usual process stops here but according to our research and project we feel we have

something to add on here. The website can then further display the add ons for anyspecial requirement by the passenger. The special requirements majorly contain A wheel

chair for the old people, a pram for the baby, etc. As the screen opens up, it will be

basically show up the food section that the customer can choose what it wants to have at

the flight and the special requirements. Now the basic motive to do this would be To

charge the customers with only the Travel fee. Example: Many of us dont prefer to eat

anything on the flight but the charges of it are included in our ticket. So the basic motive

of this system will be to reduce the cost of travel as to attract more customers and

customize their travel so that they revert back again and thus end up becoming a loyal

customer for the Air India. This also helps us creating a central database which can

further be used to deliver the services efficiently at the time of arrival.

CUSTOMER ARRIVAL

Figure 5


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As the customer arrives in the airport, with the help of the central database that is already

been created during the online ticket booking, all the resources with any special

requirements are been kept ready at the time of arrival. There will a small counter at the

arrival with all equipments ready and as the customer approaches the Air India personnel

verifies the ticket information and provide them with the requirements that is on theticket. If there are any special requirements, the customer gets the resources opted for and

then he further moves inside the airport. The benefit of doing this would be it saves a lot

of time of the passenger and makes their travel journey easy. The passengers need not to

go and find out at the time of arrival at the airport with any requirements and then waiting

for things to get cleared; instead with the help of the central database system, everything

is kept ready and the customer just need to show their ticket and get all the requirements

on the spot, without wasting their time searching for the resources at airport. Just in time

process helps us to reduce the wastage and keep things up to the mark and that everything

is working efficiently.

BAGGAGE

Figure 6

As the customer enters the airport after the ticket checking and the verification of their

identity, there will be a separate weighing belt of Air India in which the customers needto weigh the weight of their luggage. The Air India personnel appointed for this verifies

the belt of the customer, if the weight is in the limits, the personnel put a tag and let the

person take the baggage to the check in counter. In case if the weight is more, the

customer is taken separately to adjust the weight and is been provided with the adjust

baggage in which he need to shifts his stuff and take it as a handbag on the flight. This

process helps Air India and the customer too saves a lot of time. The time when the


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person stands on a Que with the bag adjusting his luggage eats away his time as well as

of the other customers too. This process helps us standardizing the process reduce the

Que time.

HAND BAG

Figure 7

There has been times when our hand baggage is usually bigger then what we should carry

with us. The problems that occurs in this as we dont get enough space to put of baggage

on the hand baggage space provided in flight due to the size of the handbag. This process

will help us cut down that problem and makes the journey smooth. In this the customer

stands in the weighing Que and the Air India personnel verify the size of the baggage. If

the size is in limit, the customer continues to check in, and if not the customer is provided

with the separate bag to place the necessities. Example: A mother carrying a baby with

her needs the stuffs like milk, bottles, etc, so she will be given a separate bag to carry

those things as a hand baggage in the flight and the rest stuff will be sent as a main

luggage. This helps us standardizing our services and the difficulties faced by thepassengers are been taken care of in this matter.


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inventories and providing passengers with hot food. As displayed in the figure different

food items are displayed with time remaining to make an order for the item. As time goes

by the items in the list decreases based on the time for preparation and in the last half

hour before boarding only those items which can be made fast such as a sandwich remain

on the list and 20 minutes prior to boarding the kiosk is closed for that particular flight

Kiosks are placed after security check and also inside the waiting areas so that passengers

can order food that they require before they board the flight based on the time

restrictions.

Caterers usually produce alternative meals for passengers with restrictive diets. These

must usually be ordered in advance, sometimes when buying the ticket if not based on

time restrictions these can be chosen at the kiosk. But this would require passengers to

access the kiosks much earlier in order to have the full menu available to them. Some of

the alternative meals are:

Cultural diets, such asFrench,Italian,Chinese,Japanese orIndian style. Infant and baby meals. Some airlines also offerchildren's meals, containing foods

that children will enjoy such asbaked beans,mini-hamburgers andhot dogs.

Medical diets, including low/highfiber, lowfat/cholesterol,diabetic,peanutfree,non-lactose, lowsalt/sodium, low-purine,low-calorie,low-protein, bland (non-

spicy) andgluten-free meals.

Religious diets, includingkosher,halal, andHindu,Buddhist andJain vegetarian(sometimes termed Asian vegetarian) meals.

Vegetarian andvegan meals. Some airlines do not offer a specific meal forvegetarians; instead, they are given a vegan meal.

BAGGAGE COLOR CODE

PROBLEM:

Generally bag handling is a challenge for airlines and a problem for customers.

They have to wait for their bags for hours even when they have reached on time to

conveyer belt.

RECOMMENDATION:

We suggest instead of placing bags in a random order if bags are kept in an

organized manner we can smoothen the process. This will happen by color coding the

bags after check in the ground staff can stick color tags to bags. To explain , lets say the

bags are codedredif they are of passengers sitting at last seats (last section).These bags

are loaded first on the carriage of aircraft and placed first. Secondly bags of second last
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_cuisinehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_cuisinehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_cuisinehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_cuisinehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_cuisinehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_foodhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids%27_mealhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baked_beanshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburgerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_doghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_fiberhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fathttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholesterolhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetic_diethttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanut_allergyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanut_allergyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactose_intolerance#Avoiding_lactose-containing_productshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_sodium_diethttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gout#Reduce_intake_of_purineshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restrictionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-protein_diethttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten-free_diethttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosherhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halalhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_in_Hinduismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_vegetarianismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain_vegetarianismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovo-lacto_vegetarianhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veganhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veganhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ovo-lacto_vegetarianhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jain_vegetarianismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_vegetarianismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_in_Hinduismhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halalhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosherhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluten-free_diethttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-protein_diethttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restrictionhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gout#Reduce_intake_of_purineshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_sodium_diethttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactose_intolerance#Avoiding_lactose-containing_productshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanut_allergyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanut_allergyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetic_diethttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholesterolhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fathttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_fiberhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_doghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburgerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baked_beanshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids%27_mealhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_foodhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_cuisinehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_cuisinehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_cuisinehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_cuisinehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_cuisine


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section are attached agreentag and kept in front of the red color bags in order of seats.

Similarly for other sections bags are kept in order such that bags of people in the back

section of plane (who are last one to disembark and reach conveyer belt) arrive in the

end.

Figure 9

BLUE REDGREE


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QUALITY METHODS

We have build our service blueprint on ZERO DEFECTS MODEL. By analyzing the

stages and the problems that arise at the grass root level like the waiting for baggage,

people blocking way in queue, etc we have created a model where errors on being

detracted are prevented to reoccur.

This is done by standardizing the process from the check in to boarding the flight. The

role of standardizing is that the number of variations are prevented leading to consistent

flow in the process

ZERO DEFECT MODEL

Figure 10

SIX SIGMA APPROACH

Six-Sigma engage each employee of the organization from top executives to the

employee on the manufacturing or service floor. It focuses on quality improvement, cost-

reduction, cycle time reduction and improved delivery performance. This results in

higher profits and customer satisfaction .It also improves the relationship between themanagement & employees.

In order to implement the principles of this approach we propose the following:

By reducing the blockage at the time of check in (due to excess baggage) we notonly reduce the variation caused but also reduce the impact on cycle time and

make the process flow smoothly.


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By introducing RFID tags and we can effectively improve the the flow ofpassengers.

Also by putting baggage on flight according to the order so that passengers whodisembark first and on reaching conveyer belt find their bags already arrived and

who arrive late are aware that arrival of their bags will take time. It will led to less

hassle and disappointment which will directly improve satisfaction level of

customers.

Documents

Air India Report (1)