Monitoring an Aircraft's Reliability System: In the civil aircraft industry, one of the most critical areas is the operational or dispatch reliability of an aircraft. For any airline, the reliability system of an aircraft is very important since its effectiveness lessens flights delays and cancellations. The effective working of this system to achieve its functions also results in greater operational efficiency, customer satisfaction and flexibility. Dispatch or operational reliability is defined as the percentage of scheduled flights that depart without any technical delay that exceeds 15 minutes or a flight cancellation. It's important for any airline to ensure that the reliability systems of its aircrafts are effective since this result in less costs and greater revenues for the airline. The reliability system of an aircraft is largely affected by both technical and non-technical factors with the technical ones resulting from the decisions made by designers. On the other hand, the non-technical factors that affect an aircraft's reliability system include maintenance, operations, management and logistical aspects by operators.

Function and Workings of a Reliability System:

The main function of the reliability system of an aircraft is to ensure that there is increased safety and reliability of the aircraft for the purposes of customer satisfaction, cheaper maintenance costs and increased revenues. The workings of the reliability system include a broad range of activities since it covers various parts and components of an aircraft. The other significant function of the reliability system of an aircraft is to help in achieving greater dispatch and operational dependency. An aircraft's reliability system coordinates the systems, sub-systems, components and various parts of the aircraft to ensure that they work effectively to achieve their specific purposes. Through this coordination, the reliability system basically serves as a feedback tool regarding the technical functioning of the aircraft's systems and components.

The reliability system of an aircraft also works to ensure that events such as air turn back or diversions, cancellations and aircraft substitutions are kept at the minimum level. Consequently, this...

The workings of an aircraft's reliability system involve the reduction of unscheduled removals of engine and APU, the major components of an aircraft cost driver components ("Maintenance Management Services," n.d.).
Problems / Pitfalls of a Reliability System:

It's important for aircraft operators as well as engineering and reliability managers to identify the significance and impact of an aircraft's operational reliability and effectively address problems associated with it. Generally, there are several problems/pitfalls that are associated with an aircraft's reliability system including

Complexity and High Costs:

This is the major problem that the operators of an aircraft face since operational reliability of an aircraft is a design requirement that is complex and requires high costs of improvement for in-service aircraft (Bineid & Fielding, 2006). These complexity and high costs of improvement emanate from the fact that the dispatch reliability must be developed in the design from the outset. The improvement of such dispatch reliability includes design improvement actions and corrective procedures to a very limited level.

Aircraft Inefficiencies:

The effective operation and functioning of an aircraft is largely dependent of the efficiency of its reliability system to achieve its functions. One of the major pitfalls of a non-functional reliability system is that it results in several aircraft inefficiencies including flight delays, cancellations and customer dissatisfaction. According to the findings of a research, the existing aircraft dispatch reliability systems have low reliability levels that affect the efficient operations of an airport's facilities. Decreased dispatch reliability lead to flight delays and cancellations, reduced operational efficiency and lesser revenues.

Monitoring an Aircraft's Reliability System:

The traditional aircraft reliability system analysis programs were based on the fact that all the components and parts of an aircraft required periodic service. While the times between component overhaul were managed strictly, an…