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The effect of the Covid-19 pandemic has been felt in many industry verticals, but particularly by the aviation industry, where over 18,000 planes had been sent to storage in just a matter of months. And due to international travel restrictions, passenger air travel has come close to a standstill, leading to a considerable airline financial loss of over $370 billion in 2020.

Additionally, the pandemic has compelled many operators and MRO providers to re-think their operational realities. Some have gone digital and moved away from the traditional way of completing tasks, and paving the way for going digital to play a more important role.

Digital MRO for the “New Normal”

Nascent technologies such as Augmented Reality, the Internet of Things, blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, and Big Data Analytics are proving to be essential factors in transforming typical MRO services. To gain a definite competitive advantage and increase operational efficiencies, aircraft manufacturers and MRO providers should veer away from the traditional manufacturing processes. Here are some of the benefits of adopting a Digital MRO in your operations.

Digital MRO improves inventory.

Comprehensive dashboards and status reports help keep track of essential parts needed for repair—based on the frequency and quantity of their use. Consequently, they can prevent excessive items in storage, as well as unaccounted overhead costs by establishing a regulated replenishment cycle.

Digital MRO streamlines operational workflow.

Disparate systems tend to create inefficiencies in your operational processes. Having a core platform or solution to create detailed production schedules and monitor your operations can greatly help in your demand forecasting, as well as facilitate a smooth workflow.

Digital MRO eases collaboration.

Swift communication is key in maintenance operations. Digital MRO integrates Cloud-based and mobile solutions to simplify collaboration with your team by analyzing maintenance activity quickly, and resolving critical items faster than doing it traditionally. Now, it’s easier to have real-time insights into your aircraft status and repair requirements.

Digital MRO eliminates paper mess.

Go paperless with readily accessible digital reference materials and electronic task cards. With Digital MRO, it’s very convenient to create comprehensive status reports and utilize dashboards to see timelines and anticipated issues.

Digital MRO complies with regulatory requirements.

Equipped with electronic task cards with automatic time tracking, and electronic signatures and verifications of technician qualifications, Digital MRO ensures your maintenance program stays compliant with regulations.

Despite the ongoing restrictions due to the pandemic, industry experts anticipate that the global digital MRO demand will fully recover by 2023. Leveraging a Digital MRO to optimize your critical maintenance operations, as well as maintain on-time delivery and enhance compliance will certainly put you at a competitive advantage. EmpowerMX offers comprehensive MRO Software that lets you streamline your MRO operations by giving you increased visibility into day-to-day tasks, as well as insight into inventory trends and forecasts. To learn more, request a demo today!

Aircraft maintenance checks form the backbone of comprehensive fleet management. Highly dynamic and regulated, these processes directly contribute to multiple factors that govern successful aircraft operations, including curbing lost travel time, ensuring fleet serviceability and performance, optimizing passenger safety, extending aircraft life, and arresting costs in the long run.

The COVID-19 pandemic has leveled great damage to the aviation industry, and fleet owners and managers must focus on preventing further damage from incurring. Optimizing maintenance checks is one of the best ways to do this, as aircraft maintenance can reportedly account for as much as 35% of the annual operating budget of an aircraft. Lowering this amount will not only free up resources for your organization, it will also ensure better serviceability and safety in your operations.

The Role of Digital MRO in Enhancing Aircraft Maintenance

The digitization of Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul services presents a plethora of opportunities for improving cost management and service efficiency in aviation. According to the Digital MRO Market 2030 report, digital MRO is forecasted to grow at a CAGR of 11.6% from 2020 to 2030, with global demand expected to recover fully by as early as 2023.

The driver for this projected growth is mostly traced to the need for improved predictive, prescriptive, and condition-based maintenance. Harnessing and analyzing data shared by connected aircrafts helps airlines focus on operations, instead of personally manning their MRO processes. By connecting to ground stations, aircrafts dispense information to your entire aviation ecosystem, and prepare MRO service providers for fast and efficient decision-making and service deployments.

Get Started with Digital MRO

Evolving technologies have packed digital MRO software with various tools and resources geared at transforming typical MRO services. These include augmented reality, the Internet of Things, blockchain, Artificial Intelligence, and Big Data. Several airlines have already moved to this digital way of doing things, such as in the case of Lufthansa Technik establishing a digitized platform that integrates all their stakeholders through a connected infrastructure of IoT sensors and more.

You can also get started today. With EmpowerMX’s digital MRO software suite, you get access to modular Cloud-based and mobile solutions that allow you to integrate and analyze maintenance activity in your operations, and thus quickly understand and resolve critical items affecting the timely and cost-effective delivery of aircraft to your customers. These cover:

• Contract Management
• Manpower Planning
• Heavy Maintenance
• Supply Chain Management
• Support Shops
• Billing & Invoicing
• Customer Dashboard
• Aircraft Records; and
• Digital Data Connect

Learn more at www.empowermx.com

Reuters reports that the number of casualties in huge commercial airplane crashes rose in 2020 to 299 worldwide, even though crashes have been reduced by more than 50%. Aviation consulting firm To70 said there were 40 accidents last year involving large commercial passenger planes. In 2019, there were 86 accidents, resulting in 257 fatalities. 

The decline in crashes came amid a sharp decline in flights due to the coronavirus pandemic—but aircraft maintenance companies are at the receiving end as they are in a holding pattern due to deferred heavy maintenance and dried-up line activities. Nonetheless, the COVID-19 crisis did not stop forward-thinking aircrafts to digitally transform their infrastructure. According to Research and Markets, the Digital MRO market will grow from $606 million in 2020 to $1.8 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 11.6%. And this is where proactive maintenance comes into play.

Digital “Proactive” Maintenance — Methods & Benefits

Various factors — workflow efficiency enhancement, aircraft downtime reduction, growing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) adoption, increasing AR/VR implementation, aviation management information system improvement, and repair and maintenance operations optimization — drive MROs’ shift to digital. But budget constraints and the high cost of buying an integrated MRO software suite are obstructing MROs’ flight to digital. But the good news is you can circumvent budget constraints and fast-track time-to-value by using a proactive approach with digital transformation. 

Proactive maintenance in aviation originated in the mid-90s and encompasses a business-like management approach to the safety of flights. In recollection, the initial “fly-fix-fly” system (1920s–1970s) was reactive in nature. Individual risk management, intensive training, and accident investigation were the focus of this approach. It was progressively replaced by a new system-based concept. From the 1970s to the mid-90s, the implemented model was primarily influenced by the evolution of technology and shifted the concern toward human error. Containing and mitigating human error through regulation and training became the new focus. Lessons were being learned from incident investigations and other industries. 

Despite significant resource investments in alleviating human error, the most important reason for safety breakdowns remained to be attributed to inadequate human performance as a persistent factor. From the mid-90s onward, a modern approach toward managing safety was embraced: proactively employing and analyzing regularly accumulated safety-related data.

Proactive maintenance is based on following a risk management strategy that includes detecting hazards before they occur into incidents or accidents and taking required actions to lessen the safety risks. Components of a proactive safety management strategy are:

• Safety policy ensuring commitment to safety
• Hazard identification and risk assessment using advanced digital methods
• Safety reporting systems 
• Investigation of safety incidents
• Safety monitoring and oversight 
• Dedicated safety training for personnel
• Safety lesson distribution and best practice sharing
• Building a corporate safety culture 

Proactive Maintenance with EmpowerMX

By partnering with an industry expert like EmpowerMX, you will not only get a technology solution, but also a deeper and wider industry perspective necessary to understand proactive maintenance. Buying a technology solution from industry experts is a competitive advantage because they have worked with other companies similar to yours. Tailor solutions based on industry trends and customize your solutions based on your unique needs.

Invest in proactive digital solutions — such as Line Maintenance and Support Shops — that can help you perform proactive maintenance. EmpowerMX provides you with proven solutions and industry expertise to help you “fly to digital” without friction. 

Based in Frisco, TX, EmpowerMX is a leading cloud-based software platform that is designed to accelerate digital adoption in the Airline, MRO, and Defense establishments. Our product suite helps engineering and compliance, heavy and line maintenance, and shop and materials management. For more information, contact EmpowerMX.

The global aviation industry nearly experienced a hull loss when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The International Air Transport Association (IATA) forecasted that airlines will lose more than $84 billion in 2020. IATA also projected that passenger demands will not return to previous levels soon.

Even OEMs were not exempted from the crisis. Embraer canceled its 2020 financial forecast due to economic uncertainties. Airbus and Boeing, on the other hand, have hundreds of undelivered aircraft.

Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) companies are at the receiving end of this disruption. MROs are in a holding pattern due to deferred heavy maintenance and dried-up line activities. According to Oliver Wyman, post-COVID MRO spend is expected to be just half of the projected amount.

Turn to Digital

The COVID-19 crisis disrupted 30–40% of MRO services worldwide – but it did not stop forward-thinking MROs to digitally transform their infrastructure. According to Research and Markets, the Digital MRO market will grow from $606 million in 2020 to $1.8 billion by 2030, at a CAGR of 11.6%. 

Various factors drive MROs’ shift to digital, including workflow efficiency enhancement, aircraft downtime reduction, growing Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) adoption, increasing AR/VR implementation, aviation management information system improvement, and repair and maintenance operations optimization. But budget constraints and the high cost of buying an integrated MRO software suite are obstructing MROs’ flight to digital.

The good news is you can circumvent budget constraints and fast-track time-to-value by using a modular approach to digital transformation. A modular approach allows you to slowly “lift and shift” and “move and improve” rather than “rip and replace” your entire legacy infrastructure — which can be more expensive, more complex, and riskier.

Modular Approach: Benefits and Methods

A modular digital transformation approach is less complex than a full IT transformation strategy. It offers benefits such as seamlessness, faster time to value, and lower costs. It enables you to: 

• Upgrade one system — or a part of that system — at a time
• Deliver digital services in weeks and gradually scale to meet other needs
• Take advantage of “plug-and-play” digital solutions that allow you to utilize existing core services while reducing costs

However, it still requires careful planning and implementation. Here are the key steps you should take to ensure a smooth flight to digital:

1. Study new-normal trends: How did the COVID-19 crisis disrupt the entire aviation sector?
2. Identify your value chain’s unique pain points: What are your and your customers’ new-normal challenges?
3. Invest in the right modular solution: What modular solutions can address your unique pain points?
4. Partner with an industry expert: Does your vendor have a deeper and wider industry perspective?

Take the Modular Approach with EMX

By partnering with an industry expert like EMX, you will get not only a comprehensive technology solution, but also a deeper and wider industry perspective necessary to understand new-normal trends. Buying a technology solution from industry experts is a competitive advantage because they have worked with other companies similar to yours. Tailor solutions based on industry trends and customize them further based on your unique needs.

Invest in modular digital solutions that can help you dive away from the COVID-19 pandemic tailwind, slowly but surely. EmpowerMX provides you with proven modular solutions and industry expertise to help you “fly to digital” and land on the new-normal market without friction. 

Based in Frisco, TX, EmpowerMX is a leading cloud-based software platform that is designed to accelerate digital adoption in the Airline, MRO, and Defense establishments. Our product suite helps engineering and compliance, heavy and line maintenance, and shop and materials management. For more information, contact EmpowerMX.

Digital transformation created a paradigm shift across all sectors in the aviation industry. It is not just about software modernization or cloud migration, but taking a new perspective on how airline companies can leverage the latest software and hardware into their workflows to create seamless experiences for their customers and stakeholders, generate more value, and work more efficiently.

Digital Transformation Strategies

Digital disruption is a major threat to any business. To stay afloat in this highly competitive environment, airline companies must revolutionize their operations with existing and emerging digital innovations.

Personalization

An Accenture report estimates that digitalization in aviation will generate an additional $305 billion of value for the industry over the next decade. This is due to various personalization strategies aimed at creating a seamless passenger experience. From using biometrics for check-ins to mobile apps for booking flights and in-flight meal ordering, various nascent technologies are on the rise which can help the aviation industry unlock their full commercial potential.

Data Collaboration

Airlines are known for their immense and overly complex operations, as well as their collections of massive amounts of operational, situational, and passenger data. But most of its data sits in silos across the organization, which hinders real-time data access and limits smooth collaboration across multiple teams, functions, and various physical locations. By utilizing business intelligence and analytics tools and machine learning, airline companies can successfully extract powerful insights that can empower their teams to function better and make better decisions.

Operational Efficiency 

According to the World Airport Traffic Forecasts annual report, the global air traffic will reach 19.7 billion by 2040. With passenger numbers doubling over time, most airlines will reach their capacity and will find it hard to scale up to meet the demand. Capacity issues can lead to turnaround delays, which can result in stranded and frustrated passengers. Taking advantage of advanced technologies to drive operational efficiencies can significantly help in areas such as passenger processing, aircraft turnaround, and airport management. 

Of course, full digital transformation comes at a steep price. While some airline companies spend a record of $50 billion on improving the passenger experience, others have yet to invest in developing their digital identity. 

Take the Modular Approach

Airline companies can avoid budget constraints by utilizing a modular approach to digital transformation. A modular approach can minimize risks by gradually upgrading your legacy infrastructure one system at a time. With modular digital transformation, airline companies can:

• utilize existing core services while transforming the entire system
• expect minimal and isolated workflow interruptions
• capitalize on a “plug-and-play” digital solution
• expect faster results
• benefit from reduced overhead costs

Partner with an Industry Expert

While modular digital transformation is less complex than full IT transformation, it is crucial to select the best partner that can provide the right digital solution for your company. By partnering with an industry expert, you can be assured of tailored solutions based on industry trends, as well as your unique requirements.

EmpowerMX is a leading provider of cloud-based software platform that is designed to accelerate digital adoption in the Airline, MRO, and Defense establishments. The following are EmpowerMX’s proven modular solutions:

Manpower Planning module

This module uses automation to align manpower with your production schedule, so you can quickly and efficiently plan your teams while minimizing necessary user inputs.

Production Manager module

This module is an all-in-one tool to plan and execute your heavy maintenance, allowing you to take advantage of automation for more streamlined workflows and unparalleled visibility into live and projected performance to plan.

Material Manager module

This module provides a complete solution for Order, Contract, and Inventory Management to achieve uninterrupted production schedules.

Support Shops module

This module allows you to plan, allocate, and execute shop activities, providing real-time updates on production status and forecasting impacts to return to service.

Let EmpowerMX help you digitally transform your business while minimizing risks by utilizing the above modular solutions. Talk to our experts today!

The aviation industry has suffered significant losses due to the pandemic, with global in-service fleet numbers at less than 20,000, and over 18,000 sent to storage since COVID-19 hit. This decision to put these aircraft back online rests on a whole lot of hope that things will get better – but as early as now, decision-makers can optimize the results by ensuring comprehensive asset management. With such a system in place, costs can be curbed, losses recouped, and operational efficiency established again.

Asset management aims to standardize the proactive management of each aircraft parts, services, and costs – from the time that it has been acquired up until the time it is disposed. In normal situations, this programmatic method is already rife with challenges; in the middle of a pandemic, where access to resources is limited, it is doubly more so, and chief among these challenges are:

Possible delays in components maintenance. There are several factors that need to be considered in aircraft components maintenance, such as airframe hours, shelf life, and ‘Time Since First Installed.’ All these must be conflated with potential delays in sourcing the right parts for replacement or upgrade, in order to prevent overfly.

Technical complexities. Various asset management tools are available to ease the complexity of the process, but some tools carry their own complexities with them. Digital technology requires proper training to be harness efficiently, for instance, and some organizations may have difficulties with getting that training. Similarly, there are varying systems that need to be integrated into a single platform to make sense of the available data seamlessly and conveniently. 

Fortunately, there are handy ways to manage these challenges and ensure proper asset management for your fleet. 

Proactive and Mobile Tracking

Taking stock of all potential issues by identifying and tagging them way before they crop up is the best way to ensure complete components maintenance. Such a digital framework will allow greater functionality for:

• Assigning work and tracking work progress, which keeps you informed of everything that is going on in your operation
• Equipping your team with the knowledge and tools that they need to deal with components maintenance, and 
• Preparing for out-of-service aircraft, which eliminates the need to leave the work site to request parts and tooling or gather new references while also curbing downtime

Using Robust Inventory Integration Tools

These tools are engineered to ensure that updated production plans are in place, and that material and tooling are on hand at the right time. By using them, you can optimize information and transactions and deliver them right to your crews, keeping them apprised of where or what the necessary action is. You can even plan ahead and remotely assign crews to meet and work on inbound aircraft, giving them advance visibility into incoming issues, scheduled tasks, and parts and tooling requirements. Once the aircraft arrives, troubleshooting and corrective action can immediately start, allowing you to monitor their requests and progress through real-time dashboards with built-in time tracking to ensure you have accurate return to service information. 

These and more available through EmpowerMX’s Line Manager, a module that provides your company – be it an airline or an independent third party MRO provider – with the resources and tools that it needs to minimize out of service time and get airplanes  back in the air. Allowing for effective control of both scheduled and unscheduled line operations, your crews can directly:

• work from the aircraft to access electronic task cards
• digitally sign work
• review aircraft defects and deferrals; 
• and access reference materials right from the work site

Once they are finished, they update work packages, aircraft airworthiness, and readiness all before they leave the aircraft.

MRO is an incredibly complex industry. It can be defined as any action that maintains an item or restores it to a state in which it can perform its required function. When it comes to aircraft MRO, this action could be everything from technical to administrative, managerial, and supervisory. And because many different departments are involved in the entire chain, MRO processes are hard to manage, and more companies are turning to powerful technologies to improve their work process flows.

Materials At The Ready With EmpowerMX

EmpowerMX’s Shop Manager is designed to significantly improve the efficiency of airline back shops and independent component repair facilities. It streamlines both routine and non-routine tasks, addressing factors that cause a chain reaction of delays across the entire workflow.

One of the aspects that often causes unnecessary delays is the availability of aircraft components. Procuring materials takes time and, in most cases, it is inefficient to put in orders only when you need them. This wastes hours or even days that could have been spent performing the needed repairs on an aircraft. To address this, one of the functions of Shop Manager is to make sure you have all the right parts available at the right time.

It facilitates the scheduling of your orders as well as manages:

• Receiving
• Cleaning
• Inspection
• Disassembly
• Material Request
• Repair/Replacement
• Reassembly
• Return

The module also keeps track of the amount of time it takes for components in each step to generate the required airworthiness certifications.

Ditching the Hassle of Paper

The tendency towards paper-based processes is another factor that hampers MRO operations. EmpowerMX’s Shop Manager would digitize these tasks, increasing efficiency and reducing waste. One clear benefit of this is that repair orders, task cards, and logbooks would be much easier to share with other departments or to route for signatures. Flagging issues can be done at the touch of a button, and important messages can be sent instantaneously. Through this, there’s better communication and faster turnaround times of tasks and repair jobs.

It’s not just a matter of shop efficiency, either. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced the aviation industry to undergo drastic changes, and it’s widely seen as a catalyst that would push MROs to go paperless faster. The so-called “new normal” wouldn’t just refer to companies’ adoption of stricter health protocols, but also the adoption of more sophisticated work process flows. The goal for the entire MRO industry is to eventually be completely independent of paper using advanced software.

Here are some other key aspects of EmpowerMX’s software:

• Asset Management
• Customer Management
• Contract Management
• Repair Orders
• Templates and Standards
• Capability Management
• BOW Analysis/Execution/Management
• User Management, Qualifications, Scheduling and Labor Collection
• Inspection
• Electronic Task Cards
• Task Card Assignments and Execution
• Material/Tooling Management

Addressing Small Inefficiencies For Optimized Workflow

The main reason that MRO processes are hard to manage is their total complexity from start to finish. Powerful software such as that offered by EmpowerMX provides you with a better handle of all the aspects of your operations, whether it’s administrative, technical, or supervisory. By eliminating small delays along the workflowーunnecessary interruptions, inefficient job assignment strategy, paper-centric tasks, etc. ーthe overall process can become more streamlined. The result is faster project turnaround times and more uptime for aircraft.

Learn more about how you can optimize your operations and accelerate your maintenance processes at www.empowermx.com

Success in the MRO industry usually hinges on one thing: fast turnaround time. This is dependent on many factors, but there are tools and techniques to speed up the overall process. One of these tools is the electronic logbook, which can significantly enable faster troubleshooting of aircraft. 

In its traditional, paper-based form, a logbook allows an MRO company and a pilot to easily share information. This makes it easy to keep track of an aircraft’s issues and repair history, and also assists in future troubleshooting. However, this method is also limited, because pilots and maintenance teams can only share information for as long as they are in physical possession of the logbook. The best way to solve this problem is to go digital. 

Digitizing minimizes silos of information

One of the biggest problems with paper-based logbooks is that the information they contain is essentially in a silo, largely inaccessible to either the pilot or maintenance team when they don’t have physical possession of the logbook. In short, communication between the two teams is severely limited. 

An Electronic Logbook (ELB) records and transmits logbook entries, allowing mechanics to prepare all necessary materials and content even before the aircraft arrives. Through an ELB, mechanics can troubleshoot more quickly, enabling you to resolve issues at the critical point of turning the aircraft for your passengers. Electronic logbook records also provide the ability to better understand trends within your aircraft or an entire fleet in order to fix the root cause.

Consider two scenarios:

• Using a paper-based logbook, a maintenance organization is more or less unaware of what’s happening to an aircraft mid-flight. If a pilot runs into trouble while flying, he would note down the problem, but the maintenance team wouldn’t be able to start working until the plane has landed. 
• Using an electronic logbook, a pilot could just record any faults in the app. Thanks to real-time connectivity, the crew on the ground would immediately be made aware of the problem, and they can immediately proceed with troubleshooting and sourcing parts and labor. Repairs can start as soon as the aircraft lands. 

This convenience goes both ways. Pilots about to go on flights no longer have to wait until they’re at the aircraft to learn of its status. They can simply go on a tablet from the ground outside the aircraft, checking on logged faults and seeing how they might affect their trip. In short, using an ELB, coupled with mobile and cloud capability, drastically improves turnaround time by streamlining communication within the entire MRO and aviation chain. 

An ELB provides several core benefits:

• It provides visibility into the operation from anywhere, with parallel access to logbook information by multiple persons at the same time.
• It tracks the life cycle of corrective actions, improving turn-around performance.
• It considers human factors, reducing errors.
• It is easily integrated into your legacy Maintenance Information System (MIS) via its ground component Line Manager.

Aside from turnaround and troubleshooting times, there is also the matter of safety. Relying on a paper logbook significantly reduces access to the log, as engineers and maintenance personnel would have to wait for passengers to disembark first. At best, this causes a slight delay, and at worst, this allows for a crucial fault to be discovered late. A fully connected workforce using electronic logbooks is able to minimize these delays and errors in operations. 

However, this is just one way to optimize MRO processes and keep turnaround times down. It is still important to manage the supply chain, keep track of manpower, and continually update contracts and billing records. The good news is, all of these can be achieved using the right software and technology, and one example of that is EmpowerMX’s Electronic Log Book (ELB) and Line Manager modules. 

To learn more on how you can optimize your operations and accelerate your maintenance processes, contact us today!

An aircraft’s airworthiness depends on regular inspections, maintenance, and service aimed at minimizing potential problems. These inspections entail regular manual checks and visual examinations that are critical in maintaining the aircraft’s optimal conditions to prevent all sorts of failure that can lead to accidents.

During inspections, the aircraft’s pilot and maintenance technician are responsible for ensuring that all checks are undertaken based on FAA rules and regulations. The pilot’s operating manual provides a checklist for pre-, during, and post-flight inspections. It includes a walk-around check before a flight to ascertain the aircraft’s airworthiness. Then during flight, flight crews constantly monitor the aircraft’s system performance while maintenance personnel monitor operating data remotely with the aid of onboard diagnostics and system health monitoring systems . After these, another inspection is due post-flight to check for any discrepancies requiring a maintenance action.

These types of inspections require entries into the aircraft log. It is critical for pilots, technicians, and mechanics to make full use of aircraft logbooks to record all inspections, discrepancies, maintenance steps performed, and parts removed and replaced, including the dates and details of each of the actions. Logbooks, as the primary proof of inspection, are vital when securing flight permits, as well as ensuring that all FAA requirements are met. The quality and completeness of these records have a direct impact on the resale value of the aircraft.

Aircraft operators know that even though the necessary inspections and preventive  maintenance actions were accomplished, some parts in an aircraft will have to be replaced as they exceed a certain wear limits, tolerances or when they simply become inoperative. This can only mean one thing: an out-of-service time to address these issues. Therefore, leveraging solutions that can determine what maintenance will be required even before the aircraft arrives is crucial. 

EmpowerMX offers multiple solutions that can help minimize out-of-service time and get your fleet back in the air.

Electronic Logbook

By using an Electronic Logbook to link your aircraft with your maintenance system, you can see real-time data entries and alerts for discrepancies as they happen. It lets you diagnose issues quickly with direct feedback from crews, and focus your troubleshooting and repair efforts efficiently so you can reduce out-of-service time.

Line Manager Module

Remotely assign crews to meet and work on inbound aircraft, giving them advance visibility of incoming issues, scheduled tasks, and parts and tooling requirements. Once the aircraft arrives, troubleshooting and corrective action start immediately, allowing you to monitor requests and progress through real-time dashboards with built-in time tracking to ensure you have accurate return to service information. Crews can work directly from the aircraft to access electronic task cards, digitally sign work, review aircraft defects and deferrals, and access reference materials right from the worksite. When crews are finished, they update work packages, and aircraft airworthiness and readiness all before they leave the aircraft.

Getting the proper service for your aircraft to get off the ground and back in the air is paramount. Let EmpowerMX help you reach your important objectives such as safety, airworthiness, and high availability. 

To take advantage of these solutions and learn more, speak with our experts today.

Forecasting is one of the most critical aspects of aircraft maintenance. In fact, it could be considered the main challenge for the repair and overhaul industry, especially when it comes to heavy maintenance, which could put aircraft out of service for a while. Thus, the ability to anticipate demand for maintenance parts as accurately as possible is significant. On one hand, delays due to insufficient stock will extend turnaround time and downtime; on the other hand, keeping too many expensive parts on hand is excessive and impractical.

Maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) companies have an especially tough time with inventory management. Demand for materials is inconsistent, and the use of parts is erratic, at best. 

Here are two usual scenarios in forecasting and their limitations:

• Using historical data. While this is a common method in demand forecasting, this is usually inaccurate because of the inconsistency in the movement of materials.
• Using subjective/qualitative data. This method can also be prone to error because your forecasts will hinge on the opinion of workers who, while experts, are only human. 

One possible reason for inaccuracy is outdated processes. A lot of airlines and MROs still rely heavily on paper for managing logs, reports, and other crucial tasks. This not only causes delays but also opens up the possibility for mistakes in planning. In the case of inventory management, this could lead to an inaccurate assessment of consumption and availability of spare parts.

How, then, can the efficiency of your entire maintenance operations and forecasting be improved? Your best bet is to turn to the one thing that has done nothing but improving over the years: technology. How you harness data and what you do with it afterward directly impact the accuracy of your forecasts. To properly harness data and make use of it, an MRO must phase out expensive legacy systems and implement new software with demand forecasting capabilities. Advanced analytics can then be used to detect trends within data, help optimize inventory, and significantly improve the accuracy of the forecasts. 

The best part is that analytics and automation software helps with many other aspects of the work, too. Here are some examples of the insights that can be gained with the help of advanced MRO software:

• Real-Time Data and Maintenance Flow
• Live Aircraft Status 
• Check Milestones 
• Planned vs Actual Labor Trends 
• Critical Factors Viewable by Customer 
• Real-Time Task Progress 
• Factual Data

In most cases, valuable data can be found everywhere within a company. It’s just a matter of harnessing, organizing, and then analyzing that data to make actionable assessments. An integrated solution that leverages automation and analytics can help aircraft operators, as well as the military and defense sectors, provide data-driven decision making and a comprehensive view into operational availability across their fleet. Using advanced software provides many features and benefits:

• Detailed production control features, with the ability to control execution schedule, manpower, and material resource allocation
• Integrated digital solutions that streamline workflow, eliminate paper mess, track progress and time, and bring all the work right to the aircraft
• Monitoring of plan vs. performance through comprehensive dashboards and status reports that cover all aspects of the heavy maintenance environment
• Electronic signatures and verifications of technician qualifications to ensure your maintenance program stays regulatorily compliant

Forecasting, planning, and maintenance are especially tough in the aviation industry, where delays can mean grounded aircraft and essentially drain money from a company. However, when you harness data and use specialized software for analytics, you can simplify and streamline the complexities of aircraft-maintenance processes and keep your fleet in the air. Most importantly, you can keep air passengers safe.

In the aviation industry, every minute of downtime due to equipment failure significantly impacts operations. While sometimes inevitable, flight delays are nevertheless an inconvenience for both passengers and airlines. Statista estimates that flights delayed due to unscheduled maintenance will amount to $39 billion in 2035.

However, there are ways for airlines to minimize the aircraft’s turnaround time. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, when the world’s busiest terminals were overwhelmed, servicing an aircraft upon arrival was the norm. This is where having the right tools to speed up turnaround time becomes critical. Mobile solutions that bring all the necessary information and transactions planeside and right to your crews are essential. In this way, maintenance teams can track detailed requests from work order creation, through sourcing and delivery, all the way to your aircraft.In the new normal situation there is an imperative to empower technicians and engineers with remote access to the necessary resources. Mobility and paperless have become an imperative.

Progression of Work Orders

Using pen and paper was the go-to way for assigning work orders in the past, and continues to be so even now, for those who have not yet embraced digitalization and the cloud. Work processes built around paper have been in place since the start of aviation.However, this method has some serious pain points. One, paper files are unwieldy – and it takes time to find, retrieve, and sort them. Additionally, they can be easily misplaced, damaged, or lost. Two, troubleshooting issues can be complicated when using paper-based logs and reports; data entry using a pen and paper can be hard to do in real-time. And details that are filed into the work order might have erroneous or unintelligible information.

Although utilizing Excel spreadsheets makes work orders and records digital to a limited extent it does not lead to the automatic generation of work orders. Moreover, there are substantial limitations in tracking the progress of work orders in real time.

Mark Martin, an industry expert, said cloud solutions and mobile devices, that can access data instantly, have eliminated the need to physically store and process data on-site. Therefore, nowadays, the prevalent way to create work orders is to use electronic task cards. Using mobile and cloud technology makes it easy for the maintenance team to create, track, complete, and analyze tasks in real-time, at any time, from anywhere. Using electronic task cards, maintenance managers can remotely assign crews to meet and work on inbound aircraft, giving them advanced visibility into incoming issues, scheduled tasks, and parts and tooling requirements.

Effectively Plan Maintenance by Leveraging Digital Technology

Choosing the right tools and systems to manage work orders is crucial to minimize out-of-service time and ensure that your fleet gets back in the air on time. Equipping your mechanics with the essential resources can surely impact their productivity. By utilizing electronic task cards and signatures, your business can speed up work by eliminating paper mess, as well as giving users clear visibility of their next steps. Furthermore, it reduces or eliminates the need for your crew to travel back and forth to the job site, allowing them to complete more work steps and increase their productivity.

EmpowerMX is a world leader in providing intelligent paperless maintenance solutions for today’s aircraft. Its Line Manager module allows for effective control of both scheduled and unscheduled line operations. By utilizing Line Manager’s digital framework for assigning work and tracking progress, you will constantly be in the know of what is going on in your operation.

Contact our experts today to learn more about how EmpowerMX can further maximize your mechanic’s productivity.

PAN-PAN, the international standard urgency signal aircrafts (or other vehicles) use to declare an urgent situation, which currently does not pose an immediate danger.

A 1996 study reported by the New York Times concluded that smart aircrafts “were overstated, misleading, inconsistent with the best available data, or unverifiable.” More than a score later, the pursuit for smarter aircraft continues—be it in defense or commercial flights—but failure remains constant. Over these two decades, shortcomings in the aerospace and air transport industries include the 47% failure rate of the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD), a 67:70 ratio of failed tests conducted among Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents, among others. 

The airline industry is highly capital-intensive. Aircraft assets take a big chunk of this capital—and accounting for these assets has a substantial effect on the finances of airlines. These are high-cost, long-life assets that contain numerous individual components, and orders for such assets are made several years ahead at prices that may include complex mechanisms. This is why it’s imperative for aircraft, as much as possible, to fail as little as possible. The financial risks are high, and here, we give you an early warning of the issues that may pose a great threat if left unattended.

Legacy Ways to Manage Supply Chain

Supply chain management is considered the second biggest threat in the aviation industry in 2020 —and the years to come. Even amidst COVID-19, aircraft deliveries are set to keep the supply chain busy in the next decade by moving passengers and cargo. Supply chains must ramp up efforts to ensure timely deliveries while maintaining quality and keeping costs at a minimum. And during the current pandemic, this is a challenging task that will leave suppliers financially vulnerable. The smallest mistake and slightest delay can lead to chain reactions that impact budget and schedules. With such a vast network of suppliers, issues in work specifications and quality of supply or customer concerns may also arise.

This kind of complexity is aggravated by the use of legacy systems in the aviation industry, systems that are usually hard to integrate with the systems of other suppliers in the market. Suppliers have to manage multiple data streams from individual systems to gain total supply chain visibility.

Niche Parts and Suppliers in Low-Cost Countries

For materials such as composite components and wing skins, the aviation industry depends on a small group of minor suppliers, leaving airlines with little options and no plans B or C in case of disruptions. To address this, the aviation company must work closely with the suppliers to realize stability, and identify possible interruptions before they occur and turn into more serious failures.

Meanwhile, airlines are forming new connections with local suppliers in low-cost countries. Although working with local suppliers has significant cost benefits, it may still expose this niche of the aviation industry to critical issues, such as IP violations, delays, and quality issues.

Funding New Programs and Technologies

The implementation of new programs and technologies entails significant capital. The cost to develop new initiatives, and even new protocols, must be recaptured on volume production and quality precision. However, the initial investment may leave companies more financially vulnerable, thus posing a risk to the entire aviation supply chain.

Presence of Data Silos

Data silos, or the divisions that are created between people, are at the heart of why companies make big mistakes—and the aviation industry is no exception. In a span of more than 20 years, many failed events in the aircraft sector can all be attributed to data silos. Running a company in silos is a big risk as it “allows risk specialists within a business unit to work in physical isolation and inhibit collaboration with other business units.” 

Problems that may arise from having siloed functions in a company include gaps in the analysis of risks, lack of a process, and an absence of sharing risk information across the organization. All these things can make any company—even the smartest aircraft of the future—at risk.

Streamline Your Asset Management

Detailed sourcing contracts and customized process flows allow you to save time on procurement, while comprehensive inventory controls ensure accurate real-time visibility for your inventory.

EmpowerMX provides a complete solution for your aviation company. Allowing you to manage your resource flow and assets more seamlessly, EmpowerMX’s Material Manager helps to reduce costs by streamlining the sourcing and ordering of materials, as well as right-sizing inventory and improving turn rates. By using thorough Planning, Forecasting, and Automatic Replenishment features for your maintenance needs, the Material Manager will ensure uninterrupted production schedules. For more information on this smart aircraft solution, contact EmpowerMX.

For many industries and businesses, warehouse management is a crucial requirement to maintain productivity. And among the countless companies across the world, global e-commerce giant Amazon has one of the most famous and impressive systems yet. 

Amazon has more than 110 warehouses in the United States alone, and more than 185 centers globally, with an inventory of about 12 million items across all its categories and services. It’s no wonder that the company is projected to make up half of the total e-commerce market share in the U.S. by the year 2021. But how exactly does Amazon manage all its warehouses on a daily basis? More importantly, what lessons can other industriesーsuch as aviationーlearn from this?

Taking Random Storage to New Heights

Millions of customers now take advantage of Amazon’s promise of same-day or two-day shipping. Behind this impressive feat is an incredibly complex system that has completely redefined warehouse efficiency. The most surprising part, however, is it’s all built around chaos. In Amazon warehouses, specific items don’t have neatly designated spots to fit in; instead, everything is organized completely at random.

For an e-commerce company like Amazon, there are two main benefits to storing products completely at random:

• Easy access. It’s faster to get to items as needed when they can be found at multiple spots across the warehouse than just in one place. Also, since items are sold individually to customers, there’s no need to bundle up the same products together in the same place. 
• Efficient use of space. When spaces are not reserved for specific items, they can be used for any products that enter the warehouse. That means spaces won’t be left empty while waiting for specific products to come through, and they will be used efficiently, as needed. 

While Amazon did not invent the random storage system, it did use the strategy on an unprecedented scale through the company’s inventory management system. When an Amazon employee stows an item on a random shelf, they scan a barcode on both the product and the shelf, allowing the computer to keep track of where every item is located.

Inventory Management in MRO

The main lesson to take away from Amazon’s success is that having a reliable inventory management system is crucial. Without this, Amazon’s random storage strategy would simply fall to pieces.

Unlike in e-commerce, the Aviation Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul (MRO) industry doesn’t handle millions of customers and items daily. However, there is the same need to have the necessary materials available whenever they are needed. Using an inventory management system would allow you to:

• Streamline sourcing and ordering, allowing users to combine requests into single orders, customize and automate approval workflows, and set triggers for automatic replenishment.
• Reduce costs through efficient ordering and allocation, improving inventory turnover and availability; and
• Control inventory at the worksite in real-time with mobile transactions and paperless solutions.

At the end of the day, the aviation industry is different from the e-commerce arena of Amazon. However, success is still hugely reliant on proper supply chain management, and using the right tools – such as software provided by EmpowerMX – is a big help in keeping track of procurement and inventory.