Tips For Digital Implementations Underway At MROs, Airlines

HONG KONG—Digital tools, including artificial intelligence (AI), are delivering efficiencies to aviation aftermarket companies, but three key factors are important for successful digital implementations, agree leaders speaking at Aviation Week’s AeroEngines Asia-Pacific.

For starters, data accuracy is important to ensure effective results, points out Rahul Shah, AAR’s SVP of strategic growth and business development in Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa.

A second factor is clear key performance indicators (KPIs)—“what do you want to accomplish out of this exercise and from this investment,” Shah says.

The third is change management.

When companies start a transformation, “every stakeholder needs to understand why we want to implement [a system],” not just leadership, says Anne Norwawi, Asia Digital Engineering (ADE) head of sales and strategy. On the shop floor, “you need to give them time to utilize the application and sufficient time for data testing to let them see what kind of improvement” comes from the digital application, she says. That allow them to see how it can decrease their work and make maintenance more efficient.

Geoffrey Hung, HK Express Airways’ director of maintenance, agrees, because “it’s a natural tendency for people to avoid change, so it’s about giving them a taste of the benefits. As long as you have early adopters and promoters, then other people will come along.”

HK Express Airways started implementing Ultramain Systems’ electronic cabin and technical logbook software to capture real-time maintenance data and streamline defect management. Hung says the Hong Kong-based LCC expects to finish implementing it in the third quarter, about one year after it started.

The airline is starting to train its technicians, and then it will start promoting the electronic logbook to the whole user base, including flight crews and cabin crews, he says.

In addition to maintenance efficiencies, HK Express expects to save 200,000 sheets of paper each year through the electronic logbook.

Norwawi says Elevade, the airline operations platform ADE developed, has reduced its maintenance labor hours by 15% and streamlined communication between stakeholders, including maintenance and procurement. That in turn decreases maintenance turnaround times. Also having data in one place, “we can make faster, data-driven decisions,” she says.

AAR is working on several AI projects, says Shah, include dynamic task card generation, augmented reality/virtual reality training, drone technology inspection analysis, and parts and tooling recommendations. All are designed to give technicians information to make their jobs more efficient.