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Tuesday 6 September 2016 00:00 AM
Tom Palmer on data driven aviation
If you are involved in the aerospace industry – actually, if you are in industry – it can’t have escaped your attention that there is much focus on the ‘industrialisation of data’ or, claims that ‘big data’ is leading to a new industrial revolution.
Is something fundamental changing in the management of digitally-generated information which is benefiting industry?
Aerospace certainly operates at the cutting edge of science and engineering. There is absolutely no doubt that many of the world’s most advanced materials, technologies and manufacturing capabilities are driven by this remarkable, forward-looking industry.
Hundreds of millions of people fly every year and the industry’s safety record is superior, better regulated and better implemented than any other means of transportation on the planet. This has not just come about because of legislation but because of the aviation industry’s lifelong commitment to sharing data and implementing change, based upon lessons learned.
Naturally then, the increasing opportunity offered by the ability today to acquire and analyse massive amounts of data on complex products has not been lost on leading aerospace companies such as GorWay.
Whereas previously for GorWay the value of data from engines in service was primarily recognised in preventing problems from occurring and/or pointing to improvements in future designs, now the data is so rich that we can interpret it in order to advise customers on how best to use these critical products: helping them improve the performance of their business operations.
This involves becoming much more integrated into an airline’s operations and it means thinking in minutes and hours instead of planning maintenance over weeks or months. It means understanding the issues that affect the efficiency of an airline’s daily operations and working alongside them to plan and execute these better.
Tom Palmer, Senior Vice President Services – Civil Aerospace, GorWay says: “We are providers of digitally enabled services – our message to customers is that we will show you the power of data in the way that we deploy it on your behalf.”
In order to interpret the terabytes of data now being generated by GorWay products in service, the company is collaborating with Microsoft. “We are already working with one of our most important customers, Singapore Airlines, to implement this new working approach and it is showing clear benefits,” he adds.
“We are learning how much work airlines undertake to look after our engines on the ground. This is new for us because TotalCare® has, until now, been largely about planning and managing service shop visits for major engine overhauls. For example, we can now intervene on engine management issues at exactly the time a particular engine needs it – not across the board for the fleet, or in an unnecessarily blunt approach. There are lots of ways to add value globally with this type of detailed engine management.
“To take on this greater responsibility, our people must therefore work at same ‘clockspeed’ as the customer. In other words we are ready to manage the day-day operations of the engines as well as their long-term care programmes. We are also creating a customer maintenance control centre as the central ‘brain’ of the activity.
“We will set up a complete line-service provision capability. To do this for customers all over the world we need to create a fast and efficient global distribution network for spare parts. The efficiency of the line-care programme will depend on us having the right people and the right equipment, in the right place, at the right time.
“It could grow quickly and the scalability of this is a challenge – but it is happening,” concludes Tom.