In full control of your airport compliance

Critical Success Factor in Compliance Management

Information management is a critical success factor in the certification process and retention of your certificate. The traditional approach includes mountains of paper and some __ observations on:

• Information Management – The Certification Basis ownership is often assigned to one person however, usually the information is widely distributed within the organization. As a result, the information is not actual anymore and often not complete (e.g. because of choices made in the past).
• Conversion of requirements – It is often quite difficult to explicitly proof that every requirement is met. This is due to the integral character of EASA/ICAO and the specific organization of every individual airport.
• Surveillance and enforcement – Many airports are acting in an “audit survival” mode and get surprised instead of being in control. Audits are snapshots and, by definition, not complete.
• Development of new assets – During the development of new assets specific EASA/ICAO- requirements are added to the Requirement Specification. The compliance officer often only comes into play when the asset is delivered and is often confronted with design choices / deviations quite late in the development process.

Challanges in relation to Aerodrome Compliance

From these traditional-approach observations, we can identify four main challenges:

1. Proactive EASA compliance: in control
2. EASA intrinsic part of customer requirements during Asset Development
3. Enhance Information Management
4. Improve applicability of EASA/ICAO regulations

Our vision: Beyond Compliance Awareness

Our vision for compliance management is for aerodromes to act as compliance managing organizations, rather than just being compliance aware. This can be accomplished by:

The complexity of airport systems requires a new approach based on multi-relational information management. This multi-relational information management system allows the user to see: 

1. For a given asset, the certification requirements and specific documents. 
2. For a certification requirement, the related assets and documentation available. 
3. For a piece of documentation, the related assets and specific certification requirements. 

Creating a digital twin of your airport will allow you to have an actual, complete and structured digital replica of your physical assets, processes and systems. This digital representation will provide both the elements and the dynamics of how an asset operates and lives throughout its life cycle.

Real life examples on how Compliance Management will help your airport development. 

• Example 1 – Inspection based on assets
• Example 2 – Regulation update
• Example 3 – Documentation update

Example 1 – Inspection based on assets

The ‘Competent Authority’ decides to audit Aircraft Stand Lima 5. Via the multi-relational information management system, you can quickly find the certification requirements that are relevant to Aircraft Stand Lima 5, and attached documents with substantiation of proof. This information will be used as input for the audit plan.

Example 2 – Regulation update

The EASA CS-ADR.DSN issue 4 has been updated. The multi-relational information management system allows you to identify the assets form your airport that are affected and what type of documentation previously proved compliance. Now it is a matter of reevaluating whether the assets are still compliant and if the documentation needs to be updated.

Example 3 -Documentation update

A contractor executes a new investigation of the Runway Strip bearing strength. This new document will be linked to the respective asset and relevant EASA requirements. 

Would this approach help your organization transition into becoming a proactive Compliance Managing Organization?