Managing Competence in an EASA Part 145 Organisation

How well is your competence management process working within your 145 Organisation?

Sofema Aviation Services (SAS) www.sassofia.com offers regulatory training to ensure both a full understanding of the competence management process together with a review of the opportunities for optimization.

EASA 145 Maintenance Repair Organisations MRO’s are an essential component of the Continuing Airworthiness Process, responsible for the performance of maintenance and the effective delivery of both schedule and unscheduled maintenance. Moreover to do so in safe and reliable way which promotes the highest possible standards. In 2011 EASA introduced an amendment ED Decision 2011/011/R 28/11/2011 which has placed on obligation on 145 organisations to manage competence in a more specific and effective way.

Following implementation of the new requirements competence assessment should be based upon the procedure specified in GM 2 to 145.A.30 (e).

Firstly to agree what we mean by competence

The employee has the necessary background, experience, and knowledge appropriate to the job role, In addition the employee also understands the company process and procedures which are relevant to the job role.

Cleary then we can see that there are 2 elements to this process – means the competence expectation placed on the employee, together with the obligation placed on the organisation to provide an appropriate level of training to ensure the employee has the necessary organisational knowledge.

To complete the picture we need a process to assess the compliance with the various objectives which we need to consider to show effective management of the Competence Management Process.

So let’s consider how we can measure the effectiveness of the Competence Process

A competent employee will usually be an efficient employee – people who know what they are doing and how to do it in the correct way. So measuring the efficiency of our EASA Part 145 organisation in respect of the number of man hours to achieve our organisational objectives.

A low level of audit findings around the business areas will serve to identify that “in general” people are familiar with their obligations and they are performing in accordance with the documented process and procedures.

Low level of incident and accidents also provide an indication that things are running smoothly. There is a significant connection between competence and human factor error, where often the lack of competence becomes a pre-cursor to a particular event.

Employees who are treated with respect and provided with support, guidance and training tend to be more productive and to stay longer with the organisation.

For further details please see www.sassofia.com or email:office@sassofia.com