Air Marshal Hasan Abubakar, who leads the Nigerian Air Force (NAF), shared that they’re now using a new method called predictive maintenance.
This method helps them figure out when their aircraft and equipment need maintenance before any problems arise. He talked about this during a visit to NAF units in Lagos.
Predictive maintenance is different from the old way, where maintenance was done at set times.
Instead, it looks at the actual condition of the equipment to decide when maintenance is needed. This helps save money because they only fix things when they need to.
The good thing about predictive maintenance is that it lets them plan maintenance when it’s convenient, and it stops equipment from breaking unexpectedly.
“With the right data of equipment lifetime, the tendency for increased plant safety, fewer accidents with a negative impact on the environment, and optimized spare parts handling is assured”
With this method, they can keep their equipment safe, prevent accidents, and handle spare parts better.
Air Marshal Abubakar explained that they’re shifting from the old proactive maintenance to this new predictive maintenance.
“We have moved away from proactive maintenance culture to predictive maintenance. This has been possible because we have continued to keep up-to-date data about our spares and the current maintenance status of all our platforms”.
They can do this because they keep detailed records of their equipment and maintenance.
This helps them provide spare parts and fix things before they become a problem, reducing the time aircraft are out of service.
“With this, it will enable us to provide spares before they are due for maintenance. It will also reduce downtime while expediting aircraft serviceability.”
He also emphasized the importance of safety. He said that safety training will now be mandatory for everyone in NAF training institutions. And they’re updating their training programs to include more safety training.
Predictive maintenance is something many advanced militaries use around the world. For example, the US Army started using it on their helicopters in 2005 and expanded it to other vehicles over time. As of early 2022, a big part of their helicopter fleet already uses predictive maintenance.
“Predictive maintenance is well entrenched in advanced militaries worldwide. According to an article published on 19 January 2023 in defensenews.com, the US Army, for instance, first implemented predictive maintenance on it AH-64 helicopters in 2005. By 2012, the Service was using this approach with the UH-60 helicopter as well as some vehicle programs. By early 2022, it had installed predictive maintenance capability on 65% of its CH-47 Chinook cargo helicopter fleet” he said
