CAE’s Unified Task Board Optimizes Disruption Management in OCC

Tobias Baesch 
Principal Product Manager - Flight Operations Solutions - CAE Inc.

Aviation Week Network hosted a conversation with Tobias Baesch of CAE Inc., a leading technology company that digitalizes the physical world, deploying software based simulation training and critical operations support solutions. CAE has recently established its Flight Operations Solutions division, expanding its reach into real-time airline operations.

Q What challenges are airline operations control centers (OCC) facing today?

A Tobias Baesch: Two issues consistently stand out: the complexity of operations and the challenges of workforce management. 

Not only are there more aircraft in the air today but there is less time to get an aircraft ready for departure. And, as operations become more complex, the susceptibility to disruptions is increasing. For example, if a plane arrives late due to adverse weather conditions, chances are subsequent flights are going to be affected. The OCC team then has to consider multiple factors: should flights be delayed, or aircraft swapped, are crews available to operate the delayed or new flights or will they run out of their duty times? And that’s just one of an endless number of possible disruption scenarios. 

In terms of workforce challenges, we’re seeing the Baby Boomer generation retire at a rapid pace, resulting in decades of airline-industry experience and know-how leaving with them.

In other words, airlines will need systems to cover for the missing experience while the workforce does not grow as rapidly as the demand, all in a more complex, disruption sensitive environment.

Q What solutions do OCCs use today to manage in this environment?

A Tobias Baesch: Systems currently in use in OCCs have come a long way. They have grown over decades, are reliable, and have developed a wealth of features, capabilities, customization, and automation. On the downside, however, many of these systems are complex to use and tend to serve only a single area, a sub part of an airline’s operation with limited overall integration. 

The siloed nature of these solutions becomes apparent when disruptions happen. Alerts may pop up in different areas of the OCC, leading to gaps in communication and affecting the cross functional character of an interdependent web of systems and functions. Recovering optimally in one domain, like operations control, would be an aircraft swap, but that solution may not be possible with the current crew — that’s just one quick example of how these domains work hand in hand. 

Without large scale, system-based intertwining, it is left to individual OCC experts to gather information about a possible or actual disruption, discuss the information between OCC colleagues, and select a solution based on experience and a “gut feeling.” This is a cumbersome and time-consuming approach that can lead to sub-optimal results compared to the potential efficiencies that newly designed, overarching systems could provide.

Q How does CAE’s new Unified Task Board (UTB) product help elevate the performance of the OCC?

A Tobias Baesch: The Unified Task Board represents the newest release of our platform approach. Rather than adding even more
complexity to a single, established product, Unified Task Board has been built from scratch to integrate and scale. It interplays with available expert solutions via a newly created, central database, and delivers three distinct advantages for OCCs via a new and intuitive user interface. 

First, it offers enhanced situational awareness by automatically providing user-specific alerts, warnings, and relevant information across the entire breadth of the airline’s operations. 

Second, it provides a simple way to generate and execute data-driven scenarios across multiple domains, dramatically enhancing the quality and efficiency of the OCC team’s decision-making in both preventing and recovering from disruptions. 

Third, and just as crucial, UTB elevates collaboration within the OCC through advanced task assignment and management capabilities paired with context-based automation, which streamlines communication and coordination across teams.

The power behind UTB is how it brings together previously siloed information to generate new efficiencies. This level of integration of data and workflows across domains represents a fundamental shift in how OCCs can manage their operations.

Q What’s next for UTB and the industry?

A Tobias Baesch: Our view is that while we embrace automation, future OCCs will blend advanced technology with human expertise. Our Platform roadmap, which features Unified Task Board as a core solution, reflects this view and focuses on deepening scenario-handling capabilities while broadening integration across the many operational functions of an airline. 

The goal of UTB isn’t just to add more technology — it’s to create an environment where technology and human expertise complement each other. That’s why we’ve designed UTB as a decision-support system that will grow and evolve alongside the experts who use it.

Meet the Expert: Tobias Baesch is a Principal Product Manager –
Flight Operations Solutions at CAE Inc. He leads the development of CAE Workload Optimizer and co-created CAE’s Unified Task Board.