02/0/2022 - Wednesday
6.00 AM
I wake up and walk over to the bathroom (barely) to splash my face with cold water. I’m fresh and begin brushing my teeth.
6.05 AM
Stomach hungry, need food. I greet my parents while preparing breakfast – banana, Weet-Bix and milk. I start thinking about my day; what tasks do I need to prioritise for today? Are there any key events scheduled for the day? I continue my routine after breakfast which involves standing out in the morning sun for a bit after a shower.
7.00 AM
I leave for work, which is a short 20-30 min drive depending on my luck with the traffic lights (on ideal days I get a series of green all the way to work). I continue my planning on the way to work; how can I go about solving a particular problem I’m working on? How can I improve our processes and system? There was a concept I didn’t fully understand the other day, I should look into it.
7.30 AM
Walking into the reception area I see a photo of the KC-30A multi-role tanker transport aircraft and the stewardship statement underneath for our program which manages this aircraft platform. We provide through life support for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) KC-30A fleet. More specifically, we provide support services to maximise aircraft availability (mission ready and safe to operate) and minimise the cost of ownership of the fleet for the customer, in order to help them achieve their operational goals and objectives.
7.35 AM
I greet my team leader and colleague, both of which sit on either side of me and typically arrive early to work. I boot up my laptop. The first thing I do is open up all the windows I will utilise throughout the day for executing my work.
7.40 AM
I perform my routine check of emails first, both administrative and technical / engineering related. This part will typically determine how my day goes. Yesterday, my colleague and I received a non-routine request to support an aircraft currently undergoing heavy maintenance. This was expected as we had been provided advanced notice last week and also because this task forms part of our professional development goals. These types of tasks give us an opportunity to be involved in front line engineering work, which is in stark contrast to the strategic capability we are typically focused on delivering within the Aircraft Structural Integrity (ASI) team.
7.45 AM
The remaining two colleagues in my team have arrived and I greet them briefly – there are some back-to-back meetings today and work I need to prioritise this morning so we’ll talk more at lunch.
8.10 AM
Today I’ve received an email from my manager (directed towards the whole team) to review last year’s employee engagement survey results in preparation for a short team catch-up at 8.30 am. My team forms part of the wider Reliability, Availability, Maintainability and Systems Safety (RAMSS) team. We don’t always get to catch up in person as we work across different sites, our meeting today will be held virtually – we’ve booked a meeting room in our office to dial in and talk together.
8.30 AM
Our catch-up begins. My manager reiterates the context behind the meeting and highlights that the survey has identified some opportunities for improvement within the program. Although the results are at a program level, we have been asked to consider them in the context of the RAMSS space. Given the short notice of this meeting and the non-critical deadline, we have been given a week to study the survey results in detail and reflect on them from our local perspective. Improvement ideas and thoughts will be shared at the fortnightly catch-up meeting next Tuesday.
8.50 AM
Taking a short break before the fortnightly program call meeting at 9:00 AM. I check in with my colleagues briefly and fill up my water bottle in the kitchen. I have a stand-up desk so I raise my desk to its maximum height in preparation for the program call.
9.00 AM
I dial into the program call which goes over; the highlights from the last fortnight, the current program priorities, our performance and recognition, where employees/teams etc. are acknowledged for their contributions to specific activities around the program, continuous improvement initiatives, or even their continued successful execution of business as usual (BAU) activities.
9.20 AM
I’ve received an email stating that a series of system safety awareness sessions are being held the following week. This is a great professional development opportunity and will further contribute to my understanding of the RAMSS team system safety function. I’ve forwarded this to a new starter within the RAMSS system safety function and will liaise with my manager to get approval to attend. I don’t expect any issues with this as my manager and team lead are highly supportive of us pursuing professional and career development opportunities.
9.30 AM
I’m reviewing the outcomes of the non-routine support task from yesterday while having a snack as I want to debrief and update my supervising mentor today at 10.00 am. This support task involves actioning Request for Technical Services (RFTS) raised from maintenance activities. RFTSs typically originate from inspection activities being carried out on aircraft. Such requests are raised when maintenance personnel/technicians are unable to resolve an issue with the knowledge and resources available to them or where they are capable of resolving the issue but require engineering authority/approval to do so. In this particular instance, an RFTS was raised to request approval for using an available repair from a secondary repair manual to repair corrosion damage on an engine pylon panel, as the primary repair manual did not appear to refer to / allow use of the secondary manual. I had provided guidance to the RFTS originator yesterday evening on how to read the primary manual as it turned out that the primary manual did indeed refer/allow the use of the secondary manual. No further engineering action is required at this stage and the available repair can be performed as is, however, the request will remain open in case there are any issues during repair implementation.
10.00 AM
After debriefing my mentor, we agreed that the RFTS should be kept open for now. In the meantime, I can work on another RFTS that’s not as straightforward.
10.30 AM
Got a team-wide email from my manager encouraging attendance at the system safety awareness sessions.
10.45 AM
It’s time for our weekly stand-up work-in-progress (WIP) board meeting (occurs twice every week). We use this meeting to; prioritise and identify what tasks are / should currently be in work, provide an update to the team lead on progress of our active tasking, raise any issues we are having and identify help needed to resolve any hindrances / roadblocks, and obtain general awareness of the team’s workload and what everyone else is working on (maybe we can help each other?).
11.10 AM
Although I’ve moved onto a new RFTS, I still have to complete some administration work for the previous one. This part is pretty mundane but also acts as a break between tasking. Nevertheless, this step is crucial from a compliance point of view (record-keeping and audits) and will make life easy for other engineers and members of the organisation, providing traceability and a complete picture from start to finish on what happened, why specific steps were taken, how the solution was implemented and next steps / future considerations. I’ve definitely seen the benefits when performing my own investigations into historic records!
12.00 PM
Time for Lunch! Two of my colleagues and I aim to have lunch around this time. We typically sit outside on the balcony to take a break from the screens (and work) and get some fresh air. All manner of topics is open for discussion during the 30-minute break, from buying houses in the current market to the upcoming Formula 1 race. Occasionally on a Friday, we even invite colleagues from our other sites and head down to the shopping centre for a long catch-up over lunch (there is a great Chinese place that provides high quality food for a very reasonable price!).
1.25 PM
Started looking into the employee engagement survey results and started making notes in preparation for next week’s catch-up. This is an ideal opportunity for me to reflect on how I feel working in the program.
1.50 PM
I’ve moved onto the new RFTS and started my investigation into the request requirements. I’ll start with reading through all the available (and relevant) manuals then move on to reviewing historic data. This will help formulate any initial questions I may have and potential solutions / next steps towards resolving the support request. I can then discuss and run this by my mentor.
3.30 PM
Having spent most of the day working on non-routine tasking, I’m back onto routine data processing activities. The ASI program’s (ASIP’s) primary objective is to assure structural integrity related safety for the KC-30A fleet, whilst also meeting the overall objectives of the KC-30A program (maximize availability for the operator, minimise cost of ownership for the customer). One of the core pillars / systems that help achieve this within the ASIP is the Structural Condition Monitoring (SCM) system. This system’s primary objective is to collect, process and manage structural condition data (structural damage data typically reported from maintenance activities) and conduct annual structural condition assessments to identify trends and problem areas. Data quality is crucial in this system for enabling accurate and valuable assessments to be performed in support of routine reporting.
5.30 PM
Home time, today was a longer day than usual. I take a leisurely drive back home listening to music. This is an important part of my day where I wind down and disconnect myself from work-related thoughts.
6.00 PM
I greet my family, get changed into home clothes and freshen up. Between now and dinner, I’m lying down on the couch in front of the T.V. relaxing.
6.30 PM
It's dinner time. Unfortunately, I can’t talk too much about my work but I am happy to reenergize and listen to how my family’s day has gone and discuss plans for the weekend (I’m attending a university friend’s wedding on Sunday and need to prepare).
7.00 PM
This is my “me” time. I’m catching up on content from a gaming channel I frequent and vehicle build updates on YouTube. After I’m done, I’ve left some music running in the background while I browse Facebook and LinkedIn, read a book or research a topic of personal interest to me (space, cars, anything that came up at work that piqued my interest). I’m dropping off some car parts to a restorer on the weekend so I’m also planning for that.
10.00 PM
Time for bed, it’s been a long day.