Repair Yield Improvements across Aviation MRO Shops Worldwide
A leading aviation MRO firm faced declining productivity across its global component repair facilities. With billions spent annually in MRO and aftermarket activities, low repair yields threatened to drive excessive spend on new or used serviceable materials. The firm’s leadership identified yield improvement as critical to maintaining competitiveness, but lacked clarity on where and why parts were falling out of repair across facilities.
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As the lead consultant on the project, [Chuck] conducted a multi-continent assessment across key repair shops, mapping end-to-end component repair processes and collecting both technical and business insights. Each facility exhibited different tooling, workflows, and data collection standards—yet similar yield issues emerged. Despite shared challenges, the lack of cross-facility collaboration and misaligned performance metrics created major barriers to performance improvement.
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[Chuck] and the team developed a clear roadmap of incremental and long-term improvements. Quick wins were implemented within weeks, delivering an immediate 40% repair yield increase in targeted lines. Simultaneously, a scalable roadmap was built for technical upgrades, process optimization, and the creation of a shared communication rhythm between sites. Business cases for broader innovation were delivered directly to senior leadership, ensuring alignment and accountability across the organization.
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In the implementation phase, over three months of directed rollout brought $30M+ in projected long-term value and a 40X return on project cost. Beyond technical fixes, the transformation proved that sustainable productivity gains depend on cross-functional collaboration, data standardization, and cultural alignment across repair networks. [Chuck]’s approach provided a replicable playbook for enterprise-wide repair yield improvement.
