INDUSTRY WATCH
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systems to the latest avionics. Yet these
new tools and functionalities often take
too long to approve and integrate – so
much so that aviation is lagging behind
other industries in speed of innovation. In 2019, the MROs who prioritise
innovative service will take the step from
technology laggard to leader and can
develop a key service differentiator in an
ultra-competitive climate.
This innovation dilemma is down to
several factors, including regulatory
constraints, but is often due to archaic
processes still being widespread across
the operator ecosystem. Paper is still
prevalent in a lot of maintenance
hangars, RFPs for new projects
themselves are extremely old fashioned
in their construction and personnel are
still taken out of operations to conduct
classroom-style training sessions. PREDICTION 3: COMPANIES PUT
TALENT AND KNOWLEDGE FIRST,
PUTTING ROBOTS ASIDE
In 2019, we’ll see commercial operators
connect more areas of the enterprise
to the cloud to deploy new technologies
faster and drive efficiencies through
successful digitisation and supply
chain optimisation.
Mobile customer service:
MROs must manage
maintenance expectations
In 2019, MROs will face increased
competition from OEMs moving into
aftermarket services. Unlike most OEMs
and operators, maintenance is the main
skillset of an MRO – this gives them
a head-start when it comes to being
flexible, but they are also afflicted by
paper-based processes and regulatory
pressures. When it comes to innovation,
MROs will need to demonstrate their
capabilities through customer value.
This means looking for new ways to use
technology to deliver a better service
and overcome distance challenges.
Moving maintenance visibility beyond
the boundaries of the MRO organisation
and in front of the customer is a good
place to start.
Mobile devices are an indispensable
part of this. MROs can make accurate
maintenance status reports instantly
available through mobile-enabled
customer portals, and customers will
directly benefit from better visibility into
key metrics such as turnaround time to
help with flight scheduling.
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INTELLIGENTCIO
One-to-many knowledge transfer
now a reality for operators – virtual
or augmented
Labour costs are the second-largest operating
expense for airlines after fuel costs. Robots
will not replace engineers and professionals
in 2019 and the labour force is quickly ageing
– so there needs to be a better way to aid
human labour and help an ever-increasing
number of people travel seamlessly. This
means operators have a responsibility to
ensure workers have all the knowledge, tools
and support currently available.
Knowledge transfer – the capability to
capture knowledge from a small pool of
subject-matter experts and disseminate it
across the enterprise – is going to be key in
2019. It is an area that has benefited from
significant developments in commercial
software tools over recent years.
Using technology for one-to-many
knowledge transfer will make it simpler for
new recruits to learn, receive on-the-job
training and get to grips with new and
complex assets much more easily.
from mobile technology and putting
them in front of a computer screen is a
major step backwards.
When mobility is allowed to play a key
part of the workplace experience, the
consequence is what I call an innovation
spillover. One such spillover would be the
visualisation of technical records – making
vital information available through mobile
platforms or augmented reality tools for
people to access whenever and wherever
they might need it.
In 2019, the best approach MROs
can take to tackle the AMT shortage
is to join forces with academia to help
talent enter the industry and cultivate a
technologically-driven workplace culture
to help train and retain them.
Keeping aircraft flying and
customers happy
This year will be critical for the aviation
industry to improve the operational
efficiencies that have a real impact on
the quality and speed of service, go to
market time, scheduling, maintenance
and training. This means reliability
analysis, customer portals, more
responsive maintenance capabilities
and a tech-driven approach to
knowledge transfer and recruiting will
be essential to keep aircraft flying and
customers happy. n
MROs: Get involved – it’s your future
Aviation maintenance technician (AMT)
demand is higher than supply. In 2019,
MROs need to start to rebalance this by
opening the door to both new opportunities
and emerging technologies.
But they need to go further than just putting
new recruitment programmes in place – they
need to dial up their digitisation efforts too,
so that younger, digitally native workers and
apprentices can use the technologies they
take for granted in their personal lives.
Taking a more experienced team member
on a journey from paper to desk computer
will manifest a productivity boost, but
equally, taking a younger recruit away
Mark Martin, Director, Aerospace and
Defense Business Unit, IFS
www.intelligentcio.com