Faa (Cass)

Dean DeFrank

Aircraft Maintenance Management

Aviation companies require a system to monitor the quality and effectiveness of their maintenance operations. Established in 1964, FAR requires carries to implement and maintain the Continuing Analysis and Surveillance System (CASS). This system is designed to detect an correct deficiencies in maintenance functions. CASS has five different characteristics that represent a closed loop system. Those five characteristics are surveillance, controls, analysis, corrective action, and follow-up.

Surveillance:

This function performs routine audits of internal and external units within maintenance. For example, people supplying parts and internal maintenance actions, like scheduled inspections. One important aspect of surveillance is its goal to be forward thinking, to detect problems before they occur, instead of back engineering problems discovered by being a policeman.

Controls:

Controls are systems and procedures developed to ensure a desired result. They may be written manuals or automated processes. Controls are used in high risk or primary procedures. For example, engineering a piece of support equipment so that it may only be installed in one way, the correct way.

Analysis:

Analysis in the process of reviewing data obtained during surveillance. This data will determine deficiencies in maintenance and programs. Examples of data used are Maintenance Reliability Reports, departure maintenance delays, unscheduled maintenance landings and post heavy maintenance discrepancies. It is important to look at these items to determine why they happened and how they can be prevented or minimalized. Should we have multiple discrepancies after heavy maintenance?

Corrective action:

Put simply, corrective action is the process of fixing deficiencies discovered in analysis. It does no good to perform surveillance and analysis if we do nothing with the information gathered.

Follow up:

We perform followup to ensure that we...