Abstract:
Driven by an intensely competitive world, the use of outsourcing is extensive and
growing especially in the service business area. Outsourcing provides companies
with benefits such as cost reduction and performance enhancement. Despite these
advantages, companies need to be aware that successful outsourcing requires an
appropriate long term strategy in managing the relationships with their providers. In
turn, the providers have to develop collaborative relationships with their customers in
order to improve customer satisfaction.
Although relationship management of relevance to outsourcing is recognised as an
important concept, it has not received attention from both practitioners and
researchers, especially with regard to aircraft maintenance outsourcing which is
considered to be critical outsourcing associated with high financial and strategic risks.
Therefore, the aim of this research study is “to improve aircraft maintenance
outsourcing through relationship management”. This research has been divided into
three stages to achieve the research aim.
The first stage related to an exploration of the key factors for the management of
outsourcing relationship, starting with a review of the relevant literature. A multiple
case study was then selected to investigate today’s practices of the management of the
IT outsourcing relationship, which has similar characteristics to aircraft maintenance
outsourcing. A questionnaire survey was also conducted to explore key factors of
relationship management for aircraft maintenance outsourcing. With these three
sources of evidence, a conclusive finding is that relationship management of
relevance to outsourcing comprises six key factors which are clearly defined
requirements, agreement, delivery governance, service delivery, performance
evaluation and inter-organisational coordination.
The second stage focused on exploring how the relationship between an aircraft
maintenance provider and an aircraft maintenance customer is managed. The three
cases study relationships featuring the four case companies were selected to carry out
an in-depth investigation of relationship management for aircraft maintenance
outsourcing. The researcher used interview, observation and documentation to collect
data from these four case companies. The findings showed that the six key factors identified in the first stage influence the establishment and development of the
relationship between the aircraft maintenance provider and customer. Moreover,
external factors also have an impact on the way that both parties manage their
relationship.
The third stage was to develop a proposed approach to performance measurement
which is viewed as a key factor of the management of the relationship between an
aircraft maintenance provider and an aircraft maintenance customer. The researcher
conducted an action research in cooperation with the main subject of this research.
The study discovered that the gap model is applicable for performance measurement
in aircraft maintenance outsourcing. The improved version of performance
measurement model includes new performance metrics that are essential for
monitoring the gaps between the provider and customer.