DIGITISATION in MRO

The aerospace MRO business has been quick to adopt digitisation in their systems to get back on to the growth path to pre-Covid levels and more. Projections indicate that the Digital MRO market is expected to grow from USD 606 million in 2020 to USD 1,809 million by 2030, at a CAGR of 11.6% (for the period 2020 to 2030).

In the meantime, the aviation industry, and related organizations are grappling with having to manage exponentially larger volumes of data from disparate sources: sensor data from aircraft and mechanics, maintenance planning and execution information, and content data. The reliance on such huge volumes of data on paper is a huge expenditure burden. Reports say that paper aircraft logs and maintenance records, cost the global industry $3.9 billion over the past decades, and moreover this has hindered optimizing operational and technical efficiency.

Aircraft, like all assets need repair, maintenance, and overhaul. Be they traditional aircraft models with turbofan engines, or jets with innovative carbon fibre-reinforced polymers. As such, MRO providers must adopt the best and latest of technologies for maintaining the most modern aircraft, and remain nimble by streamlining operations, cutting down costs and bringing in transparency throughout the supply-chain.

Investment in MRO Digitisation

Investment in Airline and MRO digitisation will take off only when companies usher in greater adoption of digital platforms into their functional processes, such as fleet management and maintenance especially of next-generation aircraft. Furthermore, service providers must leverage mobile innovations that give access to technical documentation —having access to the right information at the right time. More importantly, quick access to information can help MROs achieve a short and consistent turnaround time (TAT) for their services. This will also help the best performers gain a substantial competitive advantage.

This, and several factors mentioned herein, is why digitisation can be such a boon for MRO and airline companies, despite the high initial cost. See the upside though, where digitisation will have everyone on the shop floor or in offices gain instant access to requisite information on their say, handheld devices. Locating, for instance, the exact parts required at that very moment, may be done with so much ease! Read TAT. Again, advanced analytics can help optimize planning and activities that increase productivity. Without digitisation, aviation mechanics and technicians often end up spending time delving into paperwork and documentation processing, or searching for tools or parts or blueprints, as also awaiting instructions from supervisors. Digital MRO – A world of convenienc

Selecting the right MRO Digital solution to add value

Introduction of technology to replace or even undergo a system upgrade with the right kind of MRO software for maintenance planning can lead the company to perform proactive maintenance. Choosing the most suitable Cloud-based software platforms can speed up cutting over to digital systems for Airline, MRO, and Defence entities. For the MRO and similar service providers, harnessing data in a collaborative manner can help pare down excess costs, add efficiency and also bring in value. Key stakeholders like operators, lessors, airports, OEMs, and MRO providers must then remain connected. This holds true for both the civil and defence sectors.

Improve maintenance planning

Given the disparate and complex stream of data that is gleaned daily, entities need to design and implement information systems that result in efficiency, integrate seamlessly with the MRO system, thereby segregating routine processes from the non-routine, and maintain a database for future referencing. For advanced analytics which requires performance data to be collected, organised, analysed and applied for optimizing maintenance planning, is growing in demand.

The Digital Thread represents the digitisation of product lifecycle and service lifecycle data and the connections between systems and organizations. The main capabilities of the digital thread are simultaneously maintaining data and content interoperability, for both human and machine consumption.

Digital Twins are digital replicas of a particular asset’s logical and physical configuration and associated parametric data. The logical digital twin contains the allowed rules-based configurations, parametric models, and engineering limits of how an asset is designed to function within an environment; while the physical digital twin contains the as-maintained configuration and consumes sensor data, operating data, utilization data, maintenance data, environment data and effectivity changes in these parameters, over an asset’s lifecycle. The digital twin provides a single source of ‘fact check’ to technicians, lessors, and regulators, at remote locations.

Digital Analytics are various methods, algorithms and tools that use digital twin data gathered over the digital thread to determine failure prediction, predictive maintenance, diagnostics, prescription, component, and asset prognostics, and generally, aircraft and fleet health management. Digital analytics include artificial intelligence, machine learning, cognitive computing, and autonomic decision support.

Service Lifecycle Management (SLM) content is equally designed not just for humans, but for machine consumption as well. Therefore, the faster airline and MRO organizations reduce their dependency on paper and PDF documentation, by switching to JavaScript Object Notification (JSON) -a scaled-down version of XML, the more efficiently will they manage to share huge volumes of critical data. JSON is compatible with systems that enable digital twins, machine learning, predictive maintenance, diagnostics and prognosis and suggested solutions.

For long-term lifecycle aircraft found in the defence sector, this is particularly applicable and suitable as PDF and paper documents are lost over time.

In vogue are exciting terms in digital MRO, like Predictive Maintenance, AR/VR, 3D Printing, Blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Big Data Analytics, Digital Twin, and IOT in terms of technology. ‘End-User’ being MROs, Airlines and OEMs.

To cite an example, aviation MRO software offers digital solutions for ERP-based software. For instance, Lufthansa Technik developed a digitalized platform, wherein the company has integrated all possible stakeholders through integration software, IoT sensors, and other connected infrastructure.

Importance of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Leading is the application of artificial intelligence (AI). increasing preference and demand for predictive maintenance that allow MRO operators to conduct preventative maintenance, prescriptive analytics, automated reporting and communication features, voice recognition, and deep learning. Monitoring and auditing performance, parts failure analysis, troubleshooting and assessing equipment condition, all come within the package.

Advanced Text Analytics to avoid duplicate orders

To avoid duplicate orders and subsequent expenditure arising out of it, digitisation allows MROs to apply Advanced Text Analytics to sift out duplication of parts at the time of placing orders. MRO datasets can often be ridden with dupes arising out of variations in nomenclature. This results in the same item being bought from different vendors and at varying prices.

MRO providers are engaged in developing software digitalization that allows forays into intelligent memory use, task recognition, and gain scalability. Aviation asset management is further aided to improve response time, and cost curtailment incurred due to human error.

Tech giants, aerospace manufacturers, airline-affiliated MRO operators Airbus, Boeing, United Technologies, GE Aviation, Rolls-Royce, Lufthansa Technik, Air France Industries-KLM E&M and Thales and a plethora of big data advanced analytics start-ups, have all contributed towards aviation industry’s data sharing and advanced analytical capabilities.

Skilling Gap

An aging workforce, and those nearing retirement have been a challenge in the aerospace sectors, which include aviation engineers, mechanics, and pilots; however, there remains a skill gap concerning IT capabilities of these demographics. Investment requires scaling up in terms of right-skilled human capital experienced in data mining and analyses, platforms-as-a-service, microservices, autonomic operations, data engineering or decision science. Data science expertise is required to apply machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI), and basically adopting today’s technology.

Investment in capital and returns on investment is a major concern for undertaking new and expensive initiatives. No matter what the financial planning is for businesses, it is a known fact that airlines benefit from digitally monitoring systems, apply the big data to benefit from the advantages of predictive maintenance.

Military aviation operations need the same focus as airlines towards predicting failures, adaptive maintenance programmes, and increasing the mission readiness of military aircraft. Military repair facilities too need to invest heavily in advanced analytics to optimize their performance and improve component reliability.

Regulatory Requirements

With passenger, crew and asset safety being of paramount importance, MRO service providers must adhere to aviation-specific regulations and MRO solutions, especially delivered by suppliers on the cloud platform are accepted only if in compliance with industry-specific needs. (These services include financial services, aircraft maintenance, fleet management, E-documentation, airworthiness certificates, and similar).

There is a cost attached when companies go digital. The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), The FAA of the USA, and the local DGCA – all have specific regulatory requirements for the entire gamut of MRO activities.

Conclusion

With high aircraft utilization, high load factors and aircraft ground times restricted at overcrowded airports, airlines are having to make maintenance decisions at increasingly higher speeds. And hence the urgent and critical need to take to digitisation. Plus, with data-driven insights, companies can come up with newer service offerings, performance-based contracts, apart from achieving optimised efficiencies in maintenance work. Airline customers after all are looking for an increased lifespan for their assets with top-of-the line services.

Key Digital MRO players and more…