Aviation Week's, Henry Canaday reports: "The virus crisis has been very tough on digital innovators throughout commercial aviation. Indeed, airlines slashed IT spending from nearly $50 billion in 2019 to a little over $20 billion in 2020, according to SITA’s 2020 Air Transport IT Insights. The cuts in airport IT spending were also drastic, from almost $9 billion in 2019 to about $3.5 billion last year. It’s safe to assume that cuts in commercial MRO IT spending were also very sharp."

"Yet several MROs still attempted to push IT and innovation forward, despite cash restraints, travel restrictions, managers’ focus on survival and other virus-imposed limits. MRO innovation is not happening as fast as it would have, but it is happening."  

Henry spoke with Monica Badra, Strategy and Business Development Manager at AJW Technique to find out what we've been doing: "Over the last six months, AJW Technique has audited its processes to find the hurdles distracting technicians from touch time on components", explains Monica. “We have set up a digital incubator team to act as change agents focused on process reengineering and adoption of new technologies,” 

 
"During the last quarter of 2020, we focused on personal interviews to highlight recurring problems and design a digital roadmap to counter key pain points and improve efficiency. Digital advancement has gone from nice-to-have to essential for survival,” Monica stresses.

Short-term, AJW Technique has been deploying tablets on the shop floor to reduce paper printing and streamline entries into enterprise resource planning system. “The technology needs to work for us, not the other way around,” Monica says.

We have used a gaming system to give mechanics visibility of contracted turnaround times, prioritize work flows across all teams and manage performance management. It is now looking into asset tracking to ensure real-time visibility of units both on the shop floor and en-route to customers.

Medium- to long-term, AJW Technique will integrate with customers through portals that show work order status in its facility. Monica says software will also enable accurate forecasts of work on both scheduled and unscheduled removals. And the MRO will use a flexible resource allocation model to obtain insights into the training and qualifications required for mechanics to fulfill work plans. In addition, the model will improve material forecasting, reducing holds on piece parts. 

Read the full MRO Digest article here >