White Papers: IFS; Predikto Case Studies: ADAC Luftfahrt Technik; FL Technics PLUS… How I see IT, News, Upcoming and Past Webinars, MRO Software Directory

V4.5 • OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2015

PLANNING A SUCCESSFUL MRO IT IMPLEMENTATION ADAC Luftfahrt Technik makes sure change fits the business

BIG DATA & THE INTERNET OF THINGS Using data and connectivity to better manage aircraft

MANAGING MRO IT CHANGEFL Technics has ensured that everybody supports new ideas

AircraftIT MRO is published bi-monthly and is an affiliate of Aircraft Commerce and part of the AviationNextGen Ltd group. The entire contents within this publication © Copyright 2015 AviationNextGen Ltd an independent publication and not affiliated with any of the IT vendors or suppliers. Content may not be reproduced without the strict written agreement of the publisher. The views and opinions expressed in this publication are the views of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of their companies or of the publisher. The publisher does not guarantee the source, originality, accuracy, completeness or reliability of any statement, information, data, finding, interpretation, advice, opinion, or view presented.

AircraftIT MRO Publisher/Editor: Ed Haskey E-mail: ed.haskey@aircraftit.com Telephone: +44 1273 454 235 Website: www.aircraftIT.com

Industry 4.0 is all about the digital world of work; something with which MRO professionals are increasingly familiar

‘Industry 4.0’ is the short-hand term for something that will soon be entering all our lives, if it hasn’t already done so. It’s the fourth industrial revolution and for people in all walks of life, represents the ultimate conquest of the world of work by the forces of IT. It is the shift of work to a wholly digital basis with all the advantages that will bring. Instead of technology simply speeding up processes that were previously completed by people, it is now making possible processes that could not have been considered before. For instance, predictive maintenance is set to significantly reduce the incidences of aircraft failure… thus increasing reliability and safety as well as the passenger experience.

But, whatever IT developments there might be, their implementation is as important as any technical attributes. Knowing what to do with the system, how to apply it effectively and what to apply it to as well as what to get out of it is just as important as

the system itself. Also important is keeping the team onside as the changes come into force: change management is one of the most important management skills, especially when a sector has to manage as much change as MRO and MRO IT.

This issue includes a further exploration of the Internet of Things and what it can offer to commercial aviation, including predictive maintenance and aircraft health management. There’s also an article about how to ensure that you select the right solution for your business and then implement it in the most beneficial manner. As well as the Internet of Things we also look at Big Data, a topic of increasing importance as next generation aircraft enter service, generating terabytes of information about themselves and their environment from every flight. Finally, we look at a novel and successful way in which one business introduced to its workforce the idea of change through asking them what they wanted; I said it was a novel idea and it shows some careful thought about how to gain acceptance for change. Also, there’s a preview of the Airline & Aerospace MRO and Operations IT Conference – APAC – Bangkok, Thailand, 28th & 29th October 2015.

On top of all that is the usual overview of news and information affecting your sector plus upcoming Aircraft IT live demonstration webinars and past webinars; not forgetting, of course, how Paul Saunders sees IT and, in this issue, 3D printing which is set to revolutionize so many industrial processes.

Aircraft IT MRO: like Industry 4.0, it reaches every corner in your world of work.Ed Haskey

04 LATEST NEWS AND TECHNOLOGY UPDATESKeeping up with the latest developments in your professional world can be a challenge. But simply go to www.aircraftit.com/MRO or here in the Aircraft IT MRO e-journal to keep up to date with the latest developments.

16 CASE STUDY LESS IS MORE’ AT FL TECHNICS Ramunas Paskevicius, Head of IT unit, FL TechnicsChange management is often a challenge but what about getting people used to change by asking them to initiate small changes themselves? Here is a case where that way of thinking has already paid dividends.

20 CASE STUDY ROTARY WING MRO ITJan Ketelsen, Manager Maintenance Planning, ADAC Luftfahrt Technik GmbHADAC Luftfahrt Technik’s success story in selecting, implementing and using their MRO IT system has taught them that planning any such move properly ensures that changes fit what the business really needs.

24 EVENT PREVIEW AIRLINE & AEROSPACE MRO AND OPERATIONS IT CONFERENCE – APACBangkok, Thailand, 28th & 29th October 2015The Airline & Aerospace MRO and Operations IT Conference – APAC, returns to Bangkok for 2015 with: 40+ Vendors, keynote presentations, case studies, interactive workshop sessions and Vendor showcase sessions.

27 COLUMN: HOW I SEE ITPaul Saunders: 3D or not 3D? That is the question.3D technology has potential for design, maintenance and parts manufacture in MRO but there are hurdles to overcome before the technology becomes everyday reality.

28 WHITE PAPER THE INTERNET OF FLYING THINGS PART 2Michael Wm. Denis The Internet of Things improves MRO processes like predictive maintenance, diagnostics, prognostics and asset management; plus enhances flight ops, enables servitization and supporst more efficient business models.

34 ON-DEMAND WEBINARS: ACCESSIBLE KNOWLEDGE FOR PEOPLE WHO NEED TO KNOWView On-Demand video recordings of Past Live MRO Software Demonstration Webinars. See full information and view On-Demand videos of past Live MRO Software Demonstrations, including: Boeing, TRAX and Commsoft.

38 WHITE PAPER USING BIG DATA TO SCHEDULE UNPLANNED MAINTENANCE… STREAMLINING THE A&D SUPPORT CHAINBrendan Viggers, Product & Sales Support for the IFS A&D Centre of ExcellenceBig data is here inasmuch as huge volumes of information are being generated by myriad systems and devices: the trick will be to determine how to use that data to better inform decisions and processes.

41 VENDOR JOB CARD: WHAT DOES ADSOFTWARE DO FOR CLIENTS?In the latest of our Q&A pieces, Frédéric Ulrich, Founder and CEO of ADSoftware, completes his ‘Vendor Job Card’.

42 MRO SOFTWARE DIRECTORYA detailed look at the world’s leading MRO IT systems.

V4.5 • OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2015Welcome…

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The Internet of Flying Things: Part 2In this second of two articles, Michael Wm. Denis presents valuable considerations for Internet of Things initiatives and how companies can profitably cash the check of predictive maintenance

28 | WHITE PAPER: INTERNET OF FLYING THINGS: MICHAEL WM. DENIS | AIRCRAFT IT MRO | OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2015

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WALKING ABOARD DELTA’S new A350-900 XWB, you are impressed with its lighting, 1-2-1 herringbone layout and, of course, the plush

lie-flat seats. It definitely appears your flight to FRA and onward to the Aircraft Commerce MRO/OPS IT 2020 conference in Darmstadt will be quite pleasurable. Snuggling into the wide birth and pitch of the Zodiac BusinessElite seats, the amenities are immediately apparent, starting with the Thales IFE, USB ports, power chargers and GoGo Ku-band satellite Wi-Fi that covers the entire international flight.

As the aircraft revs its engines at the end of the runway and then shudders slightly when the pilot releases the brakes, you momentarily flash back five years, remembering the engine fire on BA 2276 at LAS McCarran International Airport. And it was during another aviation maintenance conference that you sat next to the Qantas Director of Maintenance (DOM) as his mobile phone kept ringing during your joint presentation, only to later find out that A380 QF32 had suffered an in-flight uncontained engine failure and was limping back to SIN Singapore Changi Airport.

But today’s flight will be uneventful, knowing that Delta had implemented predictive maintenance, dynamic diagnostics, prognostics and health management systems in 2016 and such events, as rare as they were before, had become non-existent. After a wonderful meal, wine and movie, you pop out your laptop to put the finishing touches on your presentation, The Internet of Flying Things — Lessons Learned Five Years Later.

While safety of flight and reliability are always key success factors within the aviation community, it was financial return that motivated most airlines and OEMs to invest in predictive maintenance and prognostic health management. William T. Greene, Vice President, Technical Operations Finance and Strategic Planning at American Airlines, always used to ask a simple question when someone brought him a bright idea, “How do I cash that check?”

The Internet of Flying Things, that is how.

PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCEThis article picks up from where part 1 left off; understanding what the Internet of Things (IoT) is, how we go about creating the potential and how we deliver tangible real value.

There are plenty of everyday manifestations of the IoT around us already. A SmartHealth watch senses our vital signs, interprets our sleeping pattern and current health in order to determine or prescribe when we should wake up, decides which of a plethora of home appliances to turn on based upon one’s personal schedule, and then responds by communicating to and controlling a SmartAlarm, SmartLighting, SmartHVAC, and maybe a SmartToaster. Of course, it might be apposite to ask, do we really need a ‘Smart Toaster?’

In the Google Nest example (see previous article), their SmartHVAC doesn’t merely provide remote control and static remote programing of temperature set at specific times. Via geolocation sensing, Nest knows when people come and go at the house, what the weather is at the home’s specific location now and in the future and over time, via machine learning, develops personalized behavioral patterns. This gives Nest the ability to optimize a home’s temperature and humidity specific to the user and specific to the constantly changing environment. With the addition of smart remote control dampers, Nest can easily reduce energy costs by directing heat or cool air to specific rooms that residents are actually in while preparing other rooms for future use, say a bedroom just in time for sleep.

Nearer to home for MRO is predictive maintenance (PdM) and it’s much more than predicting component failure. PdM builds upon RCM (reliability centered maintenance), CBM (condition based maintenance) and an operator’s current MSG-3 maintenance program from the ATA’s maintenance steering group (MSG) tailored for each specific tail or rotable. PdM is a cyclical group of capabilities that enables continuous improvement in reliability, quality, safety, asset performance and total cost of operations.

“With respect to engineering functional specifications, most components, assemblies, appliances and systems have multiple functional attributes and even more fault and failure modes. Failure of a component is when at least one critical attribute is continuously operating outside of an engineering form, fit or functional tolerance specification.”

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Predictive maintenance augments traditional maintenance methodologies (RCM, CBM…) and the capabilities and processes that everyone performs today. What is fundamentally different is predictive maintenance gives operators time to prepare actionable courses of action.

Normally we detect degradation from routine inspections or continuous condition monitoring until a component eventually fails an engineering specification — form, fit or function. With respect to engineering functional specifications, most components, assemblies, appliances and systems have multiple functional attributes and even more fault and failure modes. Failure of a component is when at least one critical attribute is continuously operating outside of an engineering form, fit or functional tolerance specification.

In prediction, one can predict engineering functional failure or non-failure, also known as false positives and the prime reason for no fault found (NFF).

The first of these is pretty obvious. A sensor or inspection indicates at least one critical engineering attribute is outside of a tolerance level and it truly is. The converse, non-failure, is when a sensor or inspection indicates an out of tolerance condition but it actually is not. This is called a false positive or Type I error. There is also what is known as a false negative or a Type II error.

So prediction identifies that a component is headed down its RCM P-F (interval between Potential failure and Functional failure) curve at some point in time before failure, given some level of predictive accuracy or it predicts and prevents no fault found. The bottom line value proposition of prediction is delivered in time. In the diagram, it is the time to respond prior to failure or non-failure without taking a revenue generating asset out of revenue generating service.

DYNAMIC DIAGNOSTICSTraditionally, diagnostics has been considered a lagging or reactive capability — that is; engineering form, fit or function is already degraded, fault mode codes are being sensed or full failure has occurred. While in many cases this maturity level of diagnostics is still commonplace, especially when using static TSM (troubleshooting manual) or FIM (fault isolation manual) manuals, in the context of predictive maintenance and predictive analytics, diagnostics is becoming proactive. Customizable diagnostic reasoning engines that operate on a database of known equipment issues (i.e. a fault isolation) can capture all of the symptoms, causes and solutions for every known failure mode for a specific type, model, series or even individual piece of equipment. By dynamically generating decision logic, these proactive diagnostic systems rapidly identify the root causes of problems to guide users to the right prescriptive and corrective actions.

New generation commercial aircraft create up to 1 terabyte of operational data per flight from the plethora of sensors on board. Additionally, they have become software driven devices and there is an unintended consequence of hardware that doesn’t function correctly without the correct software, that being, diagnostics becomes unmanageable in a world of static CMS (content management system) enabled TSM/FIMs.

Jeff Immelt, CEO at General Electric succinctly sums up the new world order, “If you went to bed last night as an industrial company, you’re going to wake up this morning as a software and analytics company. The notion that there’s a huge separation between the industrial world and the world of digitization, analytics and software is over.”

And Mr. Immelt’s observation is at the center of much of the increasing complexity in diagnosing faults in aircraft systems and components, the constantly changing hardware, software configurations and the static nature of paper or even electronic content management systems.

The lack of predictive maintenance and advanced analytics capabilities adversely impacts fleet managers’, line mechanics’ and AOG (aircraft on ground) desk managers’ ability to support D-15 technical dispatch rate punctuality.

At the April MRO and OPS IT conference in Miami, Airbus presented their long range plan to incorporate predictive maintenance and advanced diagnostics capabilities into their OEM (original equipment manufacturer) specific solutions and we can be assured that Boeing, Bombardier, Embraer, GE, Pratt & Whitney and others will also build OEM asset specific tools. But even if an airline is a single fleet operator, unless they also perform all of their maintenance, repair and overhauls in house — I don’t know any who do — then OEM specific tools are no real enterprise solution. And of course the OEM-MRO ecosystem requires open standard interoperability across Information and Operations technologies and architecture for the entire industry to realize the value of everyone’s investments, something that mere data standards will not solve.OEN AGNOSTICE PREDICTIVE AIRCRAFT HEALTH MANAGEMENT ARCHITECTURE

FAULT ISOLATION PROBLEM = MULTIPLE CONSTANTLY CHANGING HARDWARE/SOFTWARE CONFIGURATIONS

CLOSED LOOP SLM: FROM SENSE TO PREDICT TO DAIGNOSE TO REPOND

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2015 | AIRCRAFT IT MRO | WHITE PAPER: INTERNET OF FLYING THINGS: MICHAEL WM. DENIS | 31

IoT OPERATIONAL AND INFORMATIONAL ARCHITECTURESPredictive maintenance must be implemented in actual airlines’ current and future technology systems. IoT is commonly described as combining Information Technology (IT) and Operational Technology (OT). IT is exemplified by ERP (enterprise resource planning), SCM (supply chain management), CMS and MRO systems whereas OT includes the on board Central Maintenance Computer (CMC), engine control and avionics systems and even near board systems like diagnostics or health management systems. An aviation OT architecture might appear like the one below:

This data is being processed in-flight and post-flight, combined with human actions and content, and then combined with IT in order to predict, diagnose and prognosticate who should do what, where and when in order to optimize asset utilization, labor productivity and supply effectiveness. This requires a combined OT and IT integration. Because authoritative data and transactions move from an aerospace OEM’s Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) system through manufacturing execution (MES) to an operator’s Service Lifecycle Management (SLM) system, the ecosystem IT architecture looks like this:

To actually realize value from PdM capabilities, IT and OT systems will need to be integrated and matured. Doing that starts with an understanding of the state of these systems today and a plan on where to go moving forward. And because IoT is an ecosystem set of capabilities, they cannot be integrated or matured in a vacuum. If your aircraft or engine or component OEMs don’t enable OT sensing or if your MRO vendors don’t improve their MRO, CMS, digital and mobility capabilities, then building the best internal IT and OT will mean realizing less value from your investment thus increasing the costs for everyone in the aviation ecosystem.

SERVITIZATION: PERFORMANCE BASED BUSINESS MODELSProbably the most disruptive element of IoT is how it enables servitization of ‘products’ or ‘devices’ and thus totally changes a company’s business models. It is interesting to note that, in the general media, the most often cited example of how IoT fundamentally changes a company’s business model via servitization is Rolls-Royce. We in aviation are very familiar with ‘Power by the Hour’ and how it bundles a ‘product’ or ‘device’ funding, purchase price, warranty, maintenance, service parts, etc… and denominates the price paid in what is actually being consumed — thrust. This is what is meant by ‘servitizing’ a ‘product’.

In IT this is commonly referred to as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). Salesforce is a prime example of both a PaaS, where any software vendor can develop and host their solution, while also being a SaaS for their own CRM solution. And in order to optimize revenue and profits and market share, Salesforce PaaS hosts competitor’s CRM SaaS solutions. This is what is known as coopetition or the combination of cooperation and competition.

The greatest challenges for companies from this point on are not technological — transport protocols, data standards, security, connectivity, etc.; rather, they are centered on realigning their thinking, strategy and business models for servitization, a future that has already arrived.

There is no such thing as a product. Products only exist in the minds of the inept. Products only exist for the ‘spoilable’ service they deliver. Services and Service Lifecycle Management is where the check is cashed. Again, it’s much easier for us in aviation to understand these principals since an aircraft is really only a factory for creating available seat miles (ASM) for pax and available ton kilometers (ATK) for freight. Aviation metrics are all denominated in RASM (revenue per available seat mile), CASM (cost per available seat mile), LF (load factor), RPM (revenue passenger mile) and Yield.

Back to our Google Nest example. Even Honeywell Home Automation would probably, privately admit they were asleep at the switch (pun very much intended); arguably they are still asleep. While Honeywell has developed a similar ‘device’ or ‘product’ to Nest, that includes basic remote programming and control of a home’s HVAC, Nest is partnering with electricity and natural gas utilities and heating and air conditioning manufacturers to build a total home energy management offering, servitizing not only their own devices but HVAC’s devices too.

As many airlines have now experienced as they have brought new generation aircraft on board, OEMs are placing onerous constraints on their use of home grown and, or third party technologies. The battle over Operational Data and content has gotten worse. Counter to IT and OT trends in most other industries, with few exceptions, aerospace is becoming more OEM proprietary, non-standard, non-open.

“At the April MRO and OPS IT conference in Miami, Airbus presented their long range plan to incorporate predictive maintenance and advanced diagnostics capabilities into their OEM (original equipment manufacturer) specific solutions and we can be assured that Boeing, Bombardier, Embraer, GE, Pratt & Whitney and others will also build OEM asset specific tools..“

“If your aircraft or engine or component OEMs don’t enable OT sensing or if your MRO vendors don’t improve their MRO, CMS, digital and mobility capabilities, then building the best internal IT and OT will mean realizing less value from your investment thus increasing the costs for everyone in the aviation ecosystem.”

AVIATION SERVICE LIFECYCLE MANAGEMENT OPERATIONS

AVIATION TOTAL LIFECYCLE INFORMATION ARCHITECTURE

32 | WHITE PAPER: INTERNET OF FLYING THINGS: MICHAEL WM. DENIS | AIRCRAFT IT MRO | OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2015

GE invested $105M USD in Pivotal, a provider of cloud IaaS and analytics services. After such an investment, most companies would consider Pivotal a strategic competitive asset and try to lock out competitors. To the contrary, GE has opened their Predix platform to the world. Coopetition at its finest.

MONEYBALL, CHANGING AN UNFAIR GAMEIf you haven’t read Michael Lewis’ book, Moneŷball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game, or at least seen the movie, I highly recommend it. It’s for anyone who loves baseball or operations research or just a good story about people and family.

Baseball is fundamentally unfair because of the revenue distribution and ability for big-market teams — the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs — to generate revenue that allows them to pay more for their players. That makes it nearly impossible for small-market teams such as the Kansas City Royals, Milwaukee Brewers and the Oakland Athletics (A’s) to compete. Of course you can say the same thing about business. Some are global multi-billion dollar behemoths with more free cash flow and capital than they know what to do with; and then the rest of us are in the small to medium enterprise domain.

Moneŷball examines how Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A’s, used unconventional data and statistics to smartly and affordably assemble a competitive small-market baseball team in the early 2000s. Granted, there is nothing extraordinary about using statistics to win baseball games… or business for that matter. Every kid who collected baseball cards for the past 100 years knows the runs batted in (RBI) or earned run average (ERA) of their favorite players.

Statistician Bill James, a pioneer of sabermetics (the basis for Beane’s Moneŷball approach), took baseball statistical analysis and prediction to the next level when he began publishing books about it in 1970s and 80s. The revolutionary idea that James developed and Beane discovered was that the traditional metrics used by general managers, scouts and teams to forecast player value, for decades, did not actually result in team wins.

For example, instead of ERA, Moneŷball uses Peripheral ERA (PERA), the ‘expected’ ERA taking into account park adjusted hits, walks, strike outs and home

runs. Instead of RBIs, James developed Runs Created (RC) which forecasts the number of runs a hitter is ‘expected’ to contribute to a specific team taking into account the parks that team plays in.

Billy Bean explained the reason for seeking a new way of prediction; “We had to look for new knowledge, we had to question everything. We found great inefficiencies in how everyone was evaluating players.”

Beane broke the biases of his scouting staff, who had always done things their way, by ignoring qualitative opinions like age, appearance, personality and playing style as well as traditional quantitative metrics like batting average and RBIs and instead relied on often overlooked statistics like on base percentage and slugging percentage — numbers that were actually better indicators of a player’s ability to create runs. Because creating more runs than the competition wins games.

As he explained it, “It’s really about information and it’s about making probabilistic decisions — we couldn’t afford to invest something and not get a return. We couldn’t take risk, we had to look at things like an actuary looks at things and understand future decision risk. This is really about getting the most information to make good decisions. We were trying to rob some of the things that were going on in Wall Street and apply them to baseball.”

The strategy worked! The A’s reached the playoffs in 2002 and 2003 and were competitive with the New York Yankees, a team that spent $80+ million more on its roster’s payroll. With this success, the Moneŷball phenomenon transformed baseball…and also the world beyond.

Moneŷball is about reducing risk while increasing the expected value of actionable decisions through quantitative and predictive analysis of a lot of disparate data, more commonly referred to as ‘big data’.

Enter 100 billion sensors, 50 billion connected devices, a yottabyte of data and $14.4 trillion in economic impact.

The consumer and industrial Internet of Things are pontificated to change how businesses deliver everything. IoT is ushering in the biggest and most disparate increase in data seen since the invention of the internet, leading some to say ‘big data’ is the equivalent of ‘oil’ — a currency unto itself.

But you don’t run cars or factories or power plants on oil. Just like oil, big data must be processed into fuel for use; sensor and transactional data needs to be processed and transformed into actionable knowledge before systems and, or people can make decisions and respond in a timely manner.

When Rick Wysong was VP Engineering, Strategy & Planning at United Airlines, he once told me UA was filling Teradata data bases up with ‘tons’ of data and that, maybe six months after the fact, his engineers would figure out what they should have done six

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OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2015 | AIRCRAFT IT MRO | WHITE PAPER: INTERNET OF FLYING THINGS: MICHAEL WM. DENIS | 33

MICHAEL WM. DENISMichael Wm. Denis is a renowned author, speaker and independent consultant providing strategy,

business model, organization, marketing, sales, operations and technology advisory services to manufacturers, operators, maintainers and technology vendors focused on optimizing the service lifecycle of complex capital assets. Among other clients, Michael is advising several predictive maintenance solutions vendors’ strategy and business development in the aerospace, aviation and defence markets. www.slm.aero

CASEBANK

CaseBank Technologies is a pioneer and leader in delivering diagnostic solutions for complex capital assets that improve first time fix rates, labour productivity and equipment reliability. CaseBank’s Spotlight®, ChronicX® and Diagnostics Data Analyser™ incorporate actual feedback from field service technicians to accelerate future corrective actions. CaseBank guides the fault isolation processes and procedures to optimize the efficiency and consistency of product support. Its solutions are used by maintenance organizations in a variety of industries, including aviation, defence, automotive, rail, industrial equipment, and high tech electronics.

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months earlier. Rick didn’t need more data, he needed better faster decision capabilities.

Accelerating sense and respond and improving accuracy and precision lies at the heart of value creation and value realization in IoT and PdM. Which brings us back to Will Greene; “How do I cash that check?” That simple question anchors every successful CxO’s decision making process. Realizing the value of industrial IoT begins with accurate and precise decision-making focused on the right criteria, outputs and outcomes throughout an organization. That’s the Moneŷball effect. So what does Moneŷball teach us about cashing the check in IoT?• It teaches us that what is termed the Internet of Things is an equalizer for

small to medium sized companies to compete and collaborate with ‘the big guys’;

• That there is sedentary inertia within organizations not to change thus requiring visionary and assertive leadership to overcome the innovator’s dilemma;

• That IoT applies to both planning (buying the right equipment, players, partners) and execution (operations of people, plant, equipment, marketing, sales);

• That merely connecting edge devices does not, in and of itself, realize value;

• That the ability to sense and gather data (big, small, or otherwise) creates potential value that must be realized across the Product and Service Lifecycles in addition to Customer Experience;

• That companies investing in IoT need to look at asset and operations performance levers and how sensing, monitoring, controlling, predicting, diagnosing, prescription, prognosis and autonomics improve decision making to change outcomes; and…

• That predictive analytics (predictive maintenance in industrial markets) delivers the lead-time required to respond to asset, operations and customer events in order to optimize return on assets, return on operations and return on investments.

SO, WHAT IS THE INTERNET OF THINGS?The Internet of Things is neither about the Internet nor about Things; it is about creating outcomes (baseball runs and wins or safe on-time departure of aircraft).

It’s about connecting edge devices that sense conditions to systems that monitor, analyze and process stochastic events, automatically gathered by both machines and humans, to create value from autonomic manipulation of data into knowledge for the purpose of making timely actionable decisions in order to realize value for consumers of spoilable services.

“Just like oil, big data must be processed into fuel for use; sensor and transactional data needs to be processed and transformed into actionable knowledge before systems and, or people can make decisions and respond in a timely manner.”

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38 | WHITE PAPER: IFS | AIRCRAFT IT MRO | OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2015

Using big data to schedule unplanned maintenance… streamlining the A&D support chainBrendan Viggers, Product & Sales Support for the IFS A&D Centre of Excellence, looks at how the A&D industry is using big data to revolutionise unscheduled maintenance

OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2015 | AIRCRAFT IT MRO | WHITE PAPER: IFS | 39

IT IS ESTIMATED that from each and every Boeing 787 flight, 500GB of data is collected, and everything from the cabin pressure to the pressure of the tires is

recorded. But what happens to that massively growing amount of ‘big data’? The tangible benefits of processing and applying big data in the Aerospace and Defense (A&D) industry, in particular for the military, are only just being seen.

WHAT IS BIG DATA?Big data, as a concept, has been around for a long time but is now coming of age due to our ability to know what to do with it. The term ‘big data’ is used to describe a massive volume of both structured and unstructured data from an equally varied set of sources, so large that it’s difficult to process using traditional database and software techniques. Big data is usually described in a five step model, data — filter — context — process — analysis, but, more importantly, has the potential to help companies improve operations and make faster, more intelligent decisions if processed and applied correctly: in turn, allowing A&D organizations to realize a number of genuine benefits.

WE HAVE BIG DATA BUT NO BIG PICTUREWith a wider view, analysis of these data sets can find new correlations to spot business trends. These data sets continually grow in size in part because they are increasingly being gathered by numerous information-sensing mobile devices.

The problem to date has not come from big data itself, it has come through the interpretation of that data — we simply do not know which patterns are relevant and which aren’t, or how to turn them into a realizable benefit. Perhaps the most well-known example of the use of big data is Google. Through reading and indexing huge amounts of information across the Internet, Google is able to compare against your search terms and, from that comparison, determine what you are looking for. But look past the first page of results and you start to see the real problem; because what we see is mostly irrelevant.

So far, this is precisely what we have seen from big data in the A&D industry. There is a massive wave of valuable and untapped data collected from land, sea and air assets, but the industry has to decide what best to do with it. We have the big data, but where is the big picture?

HOW THIS AFFECTS A&D — REMOVING THE NOISE AND INFORMING ACTIONSWith all this data, it is important to be able to filter out which events are causing ‘noise’ and therefore making it difficult to make decisions, in order to see the wood from the trees. If we take the Boeing 787 for example, what do you do with 500GB of data which is accumulated from every flight? An airline’s or operator’s systems and applications have to be smart enough to filter out the information and present users with a set of data which they can act upon. It could well be that 499.9GB of that data is just standard flight information from multiple devices and the 0.1GB remaining is actually data that you should apply. IFS Labs, the research unit within IFS R&D which explores new areas of application functionality and provides a testing ground for new initiatives and ‘proof of concept’ projects not yet proven for large scale deployment, has already made great strides in helping to define which information is relevant and how it can be applied. This goes further than simply indicating trends and adds a sixth and seventh step to the big data approach, data — filter — context — process — analysis — action — benefit.

MONITORING THE HEALTH OF ASSETSThere have already been some limited applications of the value of big data through the use of predictive analytics. These focus on better monitoring of usage patterns and the essential tracking and analyzing of the health of equipment and troops on the ground in real-time. This is where the ‘action’ and ‘benefit’ step of the big data model can provide operational and budgetary improvements. For example Health Usage Monitoring (HUMS) data from a fleet of scout tanks can be applied to form an optimized fleet maintenance schedule — with the benefits of saving time, maximizing resources and reducing costs.

But this can go even further. In particular, the greatest potential for big data in A&D is when predictive analytics is used in relation to the ongoing maintenance of equipment. The real improvement that is coming from the sophisticated analysis of big data for A&D is that of predicting unplanned maintenance. Why? Because it is possible to foresee the maintenance requirements of any asset and then, at the fleet level, reduce the time that assets are out of action; and preparations can be made to ensure that it has little to no impact upon operations.

PREDICTING UNPLANNED MAINTENANCE; THE FUTURE OF BIG DATA IN A&D — SEEING THE WOOD FROM THE TREESUnscheduled or unplanned maintenance is a real problem in the A&D industry as it means that assets have to be withdrawn from operations often at short notice. If we are to apply this to an extreme, but not unrealistic, scenario in an active combat environment, this could be incredibly serious. If potentially life-protecting equipment is withdrawn at short notice it can degrade mission success — lives are at stake.

This is where the benefits of predicting unplanned maintenance can really make a difference. Picking out the relevant data patterns being fed back out of the myriad items of information which are being produced through big data will allow the true benefit of scheduled maintenance to be extended into every aspect of the support chain. More information will be available to understand when parts need servicing or replacing and, along with other technological advancement, potential down-time can be drastically reduced.

BIG DATA ALREADY AT WORK — PROVEN BENEFITSPrevious examples of predictive analytics, using techniques such as Reliability Centered Maintenance, when applied to a real life scenario, have reduced combat systems maintenance in the UK for the MOD typically by half annually with cost savings estimated to be around 20% during the use of the solution.

EXTENDING THE CURRENT SUPPORT CHAIN — JOINING THE DOTSBuilding on this, a completely streamlined support chain which is pre-emptive rather than reactive from the use of big data is the big dream for the A&D industry. Eliminating all unscheduled maintenance may be considered unrealistic — but big data can bring A&D as close as possible to that goal.

We have already seen that planned support is able to significantly reduce asset down-time and costs through careful planning. Big data is a concept and technological possibility that now needs to prove itself.

“The problem to date has not come from big data itself, it has come through the interpretation of that data – we simply do not know which patterns are relevant and which aren’t, and how to turn them into a realizable benefit.”

40 | WHITE PAPER: IFS | AIRCRAFT IT MRO | OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2015

There is an incredible amount of information that has been gathered and is waiting to be put to use. The dots just need joining up in the correct order to understand — but not necessarily to draw — the big picture, and to turn that into real budgetary benefits.

This needs to be done in a measured and timely way so as not to disrupt the current support eco-system. Flexible modular software solutions make it possible for this to happen. Collecting the data and feeding through an application allows jobs to be correctly prioritized, unlike a lot of inflexible and complex traditional software solutions, the architecture provides the agility for organizations to focus on the applications that are important right now.

THE FUTURE OF BIG DATA IN A&DThe scope of millions of intelligent devices that can communicate through the Internet, driven by emerging disruptive technologies such as the Internet of Things, opens up new possibilities to move from our traditional reactive type of business model to become much more proactive, where A&D can apply the data they collect to predict and prevent faults before they happen — a particularly key consideration for A&D organizations.

The challenge to harness and utilize big data is being seriously taken up across the sector. For instance, the R&D facility at IFS Labs is continually working on new developments to help organizations to manage data in a number of areas. One of its latest research projects is IFS Pulse, a new developmental dashboard for IFS Applications that provides real-time interaction of all the key data streams from social media and RSS feeds to ERP data — providing a granular level of detail on user activity at any given time. While this is developmental at this stage, IFS Labs is adding the process and action steps which go further than simply indicating trends from existing data. This is giving real insight into where the future lies in terms of real-time applications for this data and unplanned maintenance — reducing costs and revolutionizing the current A&D support chain.

BRENDAN VIGGERSBrendan Viggers has held the role of Product & Sales Support for the IFS Aerospace & Defense Centre of Excellence, since the beginning of 2012, responsible for strategic product management activities as well as development and communication of a five year product roadmap for the A&D markets. He also has responsibility for the Corporate Performance Management solution delivered through

one of IFS’ product partnerships. Brendan has been with IFS since 2007, with previous roles including Product Services Manager and Senior Consultant on the F35 ALIS Retail Supply Chain Management project and Business Application Manager at Babcock Support Services.

IFSIFS Applications offers flexible, module based business solutions that manage the entire civil aviation lifecycle of contracts, projects, MRO, assets and services. Applications include functionality for contract and project management, risk management, budgeting and forecasting,

engineering, material management, sub-contracting, document management, fabrication, service and maintenance management, as well as financials and human resources. Being component-based, it is easier to implement and can be incremental to align with the growth and scope of a business.

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LEADING INTEGRATED CIVIL AVIATION MAINTENANCE AND SUPPORT SOFTWAREModern, powerful and user friendly enterprise application which supports cost reduction and achievement of required service levels through the life cycle of civil aviation fleets.

- Fleet & Asset Management- Heavy Maintenance- Complex Assembly MRO- Component MRO- Corporate Performance Management (CPM)- Supply Chain & Warehouse Management- Maintenance Repair & Overhaul (MRO) www.IFSWORLD.com

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Visit conference website: http://www.aircraft-commerce.com/conferences/Bangkok_2015/Home.aspFor further information contact Stephen Keeble – stephen@aircraft-commerce.com; +44 1403 230 888

AIRLINE & AEROSPACE MRO & FLIGHT OPERATIONS IT CONFERENCE 28th & 29th October 2015 – Amari Watergate Hotel, Bangkok, Thailand

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