HUMS and Maintenance Credits

This paper explains how Health Usage and Monitoring System (HUMS), existing, and current emerging technologies can work together to form a system that can give users a true usage factor for determining maintenance credits. HUMS in the United States (US) military rotorcraft arena, and the support systems that manage maintenance do not work together efficiently. A major problem is that the existing support systems, phased maintenance, and many other factors were never designed to accept inputs from such things as HUMS. Efficient feedback loops to the users, builders, suppliers, and owners of the aircraft either do not exist, or do not provide timely information. This makes the data produced by a HUMS appears to have less value than it actually does. There are several emerging technologies that can maximize the impact a HUMS can have on an aircrafts’ support system. One of these is the Advanced Maintenance Aids Chinook (AMAC), which will reinvent how the US Army will perform phased, and eventually, all maintenance on the CH-47F. Another major enabler of this HUMS/support cooperation is parts marking. Parts marking has been in place for many years on commercial aircraft, proving its value many times over. The largest enabler to come about in the last few years has been the advances in computing, high speed internet access, and wireless technologies. Even with the technologies mentioned above, a strategy on how to build a firm HUMS structured data definition is also needed. Establishing trends, failure and usage patterns, and backup data is all part of adding credibility to the HUMS data so that modifications to the phased maintenance, or giving maintenance credits can be considered. All parties that are a part of the existing dataflow process must understand the benefits of change. An overall objective, and execution plan have to be part of launching HUMS into the maintenance supply system.