Conference Agenda

Air Transport Services Group (ATSG) is an aviation holding company which provides air cargo transportation and related services through subsidiaries ABX Air, Air Transport International (ATI), and Cargo Aircraft Management (CAM). In November 2019, ATSG went live with a new MRO IT system covering a fleet that numbered 80 aircraft (B767 and B757) with 4 additional aircraft about to be added and further growth expected. This presentation outlines ATSG’s product selection process, implementation activities and in-use experience to-date. The airline describes the motivation to procure a new system including a desire to drive business efficiencies, utilize common processes across its organizations, and accommodate expected growth.

As more and more innovative predictive analytics tools come to market, a major challenge facing airlines and aircraft operators is to exploit all the data e-enabled aircraft generate and ensure that all that lucrative data is shared with companies that can extract the maximum value from it. The right-to-use issue for airlines is a hot topic with OEMs and third party MROs, but who actually owns the data? This presentation explores the major arguments and examines legal precedents to provide a definitive answer.

With the demand for professional mechanics in the aviation industry constantly growing, FL Technics has begun implementing training VR modules to make the training process far shorter and prepare mechanics faster with no loss in quality. The case study will include a demo of the VR solution, showing the trainee mechanic proceeding through a series of tasks, starting with selecting the right tools, inserting a safety lock, etc. As you will see the trainee can select whether or not they require in simulation guidance and all efforts have been made to make the simulator as accurate and realistic as possible.

IATA provides an update to the initiative promoting digital aircraft maintenance. The presentation topics such as: implementation of eLogbook among airlines; work with ATA on XML standards for Maintenance Programs, Allowable Configuration; Aircraft Health Monitoring initiative; Avionics Software Reliability, create best practices for Aircraft Leasing, LLP traceability; new product “MRO Hub” and more...

The incoming generation of e-enabled aircraft provide an unprecedented volume of data, but how are airlines using this big data to improve operational efficiency? This panel discussion brings together OEMs, IT Vendors, Airlines and MRO Facilities to discuss key issues such as:

• Real-life examples / case studies of airlines using data analytics applications and the benefits they are seeing.
• The challenges airlines are facing in gaining the most value from big data / predictive systems.
• A round-up of the latest analytics solutions on the market.
• What can Big Data / Predictive Analytics do that M&E Systems and other IT systems are not doing?
• What quantity of aircraft data is actually being downloaded from the aircraft or could be downloaded and subsequently processed by Big Data Systems?
• What quantity of data or number of parameters can be analysed before it becomes uneconomic to cure / improve a particular problem?
• What's next for Predictive Data Systems? Are next-generation systems coming to market in 2020?
• Questions from the audience. Your change to ask the panel any burning questions you have via the conference App.

Panellists include:

In this case study USA Jet outlines its innovative e-Signature adoption project using its maintenance management system AMOS. Best practice advice for a successful implementation is detailed, such as: training, process revisions and risk mitigation. Now that the solution is live at the airline the advantages are outlined such as: cost benefits, and faster turnaround from sign-off to quality review all now performed within AMOS.

This presentation will share the experience with AI analytics in military aircraft sustainment operations at Ogden Air Logistics Center (OO-ALC). USAF IT systems have been long collecting maintenance, aircraft configuration, and aircraft usage data. Including analysis of this data into daily decisions can greatly improve maintenance and logistics processes; an estimate was over $200M. Recognizing this opportunity prompted a series of USAF contracts in analytics technology to address the OO-ALC user needs. The goal was an automated AI application allowing USAF data analysts to focus on results instead of production and to support data driven decisions that improve the ability to generate and regenerate missions.

We will talk about the AI for maintenance demand (failures and removals) driven by aircraft usage – a domain of reliability analysis. No existing solution was found to provide fully automated analysis not requiring engineering labor, yet explainable to reliability engineers. The developed AI application is called Reliability Digital Twin (RDT) and works with existing data. The custom AI/ML methods work with data sets that are often smaller than necessary for ML library functions. RDT functions include failure rate curve characterization (e.g., a bathtub curve), predictive trending of fleet reliability, bad actor parts detection, bad actor hosts detection, subpopulation analysis, No Fault Found (NFF) removal characterization, and more. These functions support improved test/repair effectiveness, identification of emerging failure modes, and feedback for bad actor remediation efforts. Consistent data analysis results available across the enterprise from the point of maintenance to system engineering.

This presentation will also discuss some software and IT topics. One, is Analytics Engine operationally deployed with automated reporting app, early in the software cycle. Another, is RDT microservice architecture and its integration with BI tools and host IT system. Yet another topic is simulation-based verification of the AI application more typical for flight software processes than for a cloud app lifecycle.

Today it is possible to build a Digital Twin that reflects exactly your business requirements. Ubisense have enabled MRO companies to see real time how their facilities are performing by tracking tools, tasks, material and work orders. Using this technology enables existing ERP, MES or MRO solutions to directly control and interact with activities on the hangar floor ensuring maximum efficiency is achieved throughout the MRO process. Customer case studies will  be discussed to demonstrate the benefit a Digital Twin program can realise.

In this case study Edelweiss Air showcases how a sophisticated digital document management software system is crucial in helping to appoint a culture of safety and compliance across the airline, allowing for the tracking within revisions and offering workflows in a digital format. You will see how the system is designed to author and centrally store all documents and manuals providing to the operations department the opportunity to distribute the most up-to-date digital versions across multiple devices and into the airline’s different EFB solutions, ensuring pilots will receive fully revised flight manuals and documentation and enabling them to find fast the information they require when the time is a constraint.

This case study outlines Norwegian’s use of the new Cruise Profile Optimizer from AVTECH which provides pilots with vertical flight path optimization in-flight, resulting in significant fuel and time savings per flight. The solution has been developed to utilize existing aircraft hardware and data communications, requiring no new aircraft hardware or software investments, and delivers the key profile data to the pilots in the flight deck via an EFB device, a cockpit printer or display.

During the presentation Norwegian will outline the solution’s key features and benefits and it will be explain how the Cruise Profile Optimizer retrieves real-time flight plan and aircraft performance data (cost index, weight, etc), and the most accurate and advanced wind and temperature data from the Met Office 10k global weather forecast solution to provide pilots with real-time in-flight decision support to select a cost-optimal flight path.

In this presentation ICF outline the challenges airlines are faced when optimizing schedules and how IOC can better leverage operational data to: build a more resilient schedule to begin with; optimize block buffer; optimize turn-times and use CDM correctly; be able to anticipate rather than react to disruption; understand EU361 costs.

Operating an airline safely and efficiently under multiple rulesets such as FAR 117, 135 and 121 Supplemental requires modern, sophisticated tools. In this case study Empire Airlines outlines its use of a modern automated system to manage complicated scheduling and tracking qualifications, currencies, flight time, duty time and rest. The case study will showcase how the tool provides tight integration between flight/fleet management, crew/flight ops, flight planning, maintenance, inventory and accounting to reduce cost and duplication errors.