Flexibility costs money. Industry like FlyBe, Virgin, BA don't need anyway near the amount of flexibility that we need in order to operate. For example, if there is a routine shuttle flight between, say, Stansted and Paris the only things likely to stop the flight are the ac going t!ts up or either airport being closed. If the ac develops a snag en route the ac has the capability to radio ahead the symptoms, the engineers on the ground analyse the symptoms and make a decision on the nature of the fault and order parts accordingly. On landing the techies and spares are avalable to carry out rect's whilst the ac is being turned. Low and behold the ac is ready for its return flight.
A fast jet sqn's flying programme though is subject to a whole raft of variables - range availability for practice bombing sorties, weather conditions, tanker availability, crew availability, ac serviceability, low flying clearence etc etc. It seems that the consultants brought in to LEAN the system simply don't understand this and more worryingly, neither do the 1 and 2 stars who approve their ideas. You can prescribe the sortie type for an airline because they only ever do one type of sortie but the flexibility we use routinely to get the most out of our available assets has always been our greatest strength. Even if we have only one serviceable ac, we'll invariably try and get something useful out of it even if its just SCT (yes its punching holes in the sky but its still of use to the aircrew). It may not be what had been planned the previous day when drafting the flying programme, but its better than nothing. Under LEAN, we can't even achieve that. The same applies on the engineering side. An ac can land with any number of snags of varying complexity, for example a quick box change to a UFCM or birdstrike. In order to respond quickly to any eventuality we need a responsive and reliable supply system based on a repair facility model and not a production line. IMHO, you simply cannot have both.