Creative Teammates Drive Yield
The source of our Yield is from Retaining our Teammates
On another recent jaunt through the shop, I saw a teammate that was tasked with squeezing an expensive, brittle carbon bushing into a tight steel hole. I asked how we were going to accomplish that without the chance of breaking the bushing. I got back the perfect response: Experience.
This teammate walked me through two previous repairs with a similar problem. This new repair was a piece of cake by comparison. And yet, another shop determined this part was BER because, in their eyes, the bushing could not be replaced.
Yet again, we proved that BER is in the eyes of the Wrench Turner. Our team has seen a lot of repair methods over the years. So, they are willing and able to bring that experience to bear. Because of that, they rarely see BER. Instead, they see Options & Solutions. And, that is why our team Yields more Repairs for our customers.
We have previously referenced the value of Repair Yield to our Customers’ average cost of removal. We have also discussed the value of doing CMM repairs creatively. But, we have yet to discuss the source of that creativity: the Team!
Experienced Teammates are Creative Teammates
Creativity comes from experience. If you have never done something before, it is hard (if not impossible) to complete something creatively or with added challenges. Similarly, you have to learn how to fly a plane before you can fly one through a storm.
At Air-Cert, we rarely get parts that are the equivalent of a pilot’s “blue-sky day”. The parts we get are usually difficult to repair. For example, frequently the part that needs the fix cannot be bought or fixed by most. It takes time to figure out these repairs. Our team has the liberty to invest this time. In the short run, it finds a solution for our customers. In the long run, this investment builds tomes of tribal knowledge about repair techniques. These techniques allow for future repairs on new parts to be feasible. Because we invest in figuring out difficult repairs, we earn the ability to do more difficult repairs.
Internally, this builds a team of Expert Mechanics. Our “tomes of tribal knowledge” exist inside their head. We use Confluence to document as much as we can, but even if we had 100% of it documented, not even AI has figured out how to bring it all to bear on a new repair in the physical world. That takes years of working through nuanced constraints and with unique assemblies in order to creatively bring it all bear to yield a part. In short, it takes Experienced Mechanics to use their knowledge and creativity to drive yield for customers.
Experience is Curated through Training and Trust
Our Mechanics and our Office team have decades of experience working past the first few obstacles to maximize yield for our customers. This experience is curated over several years of moving through more and more complicated responsibilities. Typically, our teammates will start off as apprentices to our more experienced A&P Mechanics. Then, they will take full responsibility for full, less challenging repairs, which are subsequently inspected by a more experienced Mechanic. Then, they will get progressively more complicated repairs.
Throughout this time, our Mechanics are learning the process within a structure that provides a safety net. Therefore, when they run into an obstacle, they can work through it with guided autonomy. This develops their problem solving skill set without getting off track.
Once we have a team of Trained, Expert Mechanics, we must trust them to do their work creatively. But, creative work is neither linear, nor efficient. So, it can be nerve racking to manage in the context of customer and investor demands.
Yet, our leadership must trust our team that they are working as effectively as possible to solve these difficult challenges. That trust has been earned over years of repairs, and it is as critical to team satisfaction as it is to our customer satisfaction.
A curated on-the-job training and development process fosters continued experience development and knowledge transfer through generations. Then, we trust our team to bring that experience to bear in developing solutions for our customers
Experienced Teammates must be Retained
After all this effort to Recruit and Develop experience on our team, we are very opposed to conducting layoffs and letting good teammates walk out the door. That said, we respect that not every business owner has the same kind of investor support that we do (shout out to Permanent Equity). We are lucky that we had their support to not only retain all of our teammates throughout the 2020-2021 downturn, but we actually shifted to a hiring posture across both businesses through the toughest time our industry has seen in generations.
Now, in the good times, we are doing everything we can to retain our teammates. We continue to provide a stable work environment and a valuable career path, with expanding challenges and relative autonomy. All while providing market compensation and bonuses to help the team share in the company’s success. But we don’t stop there. We are working on our relationship with our team every day!
Conclusion
Our team makes the magic happen for our customers. Their experience drives our yield as a shop, which is our critical value proposition to the industry. That is why we do what we can to continuously build that experience within an enjoyable work environment. We have built a home where teammates have built their career, and we look forward to keeping that home intact well into the future.
If we can help you creatively figure out a repair on a part number that is bugging you, reach out! If you know someone embarking on a career as a Mechanic, send them our way!
New Repairs: Sales@Air-Cert.com
New Careers: Careers@Air-Cert.com