With the increase in traffic and aircraft becoming more technologically demanding with each new generation, the maintenance, repair, and overhaul business see a plethora of companies offering their innovative solutions. Among them, Fingermind developed a software suite accessible from tablets that allow for easy access to all information required for aeronautical maintenance.
The air transport market has known a formidable expansion in the last two decades, with more than 20,000 commercial planes operating globally in 2019. Additionally to the expansion of the global fleet, planes are spending more time in the skies. Quite naturally, the demand for maintenance business has also increased proportionately.
The growth of the MRO market, reaching $81.9 billion for the sole commercial aviation in 2019, is also driven by more complex workshop visits with a slight year-on-year increase in maintenance costs. IATA estimated the maintenance cost for an aircraft at $1,089 per flight hour. To keep up with the complexity of new aircraft and provide customers with competitive solutions, the MRO business reinvented itself, putting an accent on digitalization.
The need for fast and reliable MRO solutions
A grounded aircraft, whether it is for planned maintenance or repair of a technical defect, costs an airline several thousand dollars per minute. On average, maintenance represents approximately 10% of airline operational costs. In the context of the coronavirus COVID-19 crisis, cost-saving levers are becoming essential. To save on maintenance, carriers, and service providers are in need of easy access to reliable and centralized information in order to carry out their work as fast as possible, in a safe manner. With MRO Suite, Fingermind aims to provide such a tool, with the touch of a finger.
MRO Suite contains technical information of all major aircraft manufacturers (Boeing, Airbus, Embraer…) ranging from textual procedures to 3D animations, with the list of equipment and supplies needed to complete each task. The needed data is easily reachable thanks to a search engine. Regular updates ensure that the information is safe and reliable. The software, accessible from a single tablet, is easy to handle. It requires no specific formation for maintenance operators and can be installed on most off-the-shelves tablet operating systems, including iOS, Windows, and Android. MRO Suite can operate both in local mode, with all data available on the tablet, and in connected mode, with server access. The large database makes it a perfectly scalable solution and is particularly suitable for carriers that operate a mixed fleet of aircraft.
The product offered by the Paris-based company found its place in the world of MRO. Its portfolio boasts 2,000 supported aircraft spread among 40 airlines worldwide.
Stepping into the world of predictive maintenance
Compelled by the democratization of Artificial Intelligence and Big Data technologies, the MRO business is aiming towards developing predictive maintenance solutions. These major transformations, although still in the development stage for most of them, should change the face of the maintenance business.
Fingermind is no exception. The MRO Suite is already offering data export to monitor operational feedback and, with the help of AI learning, better identify, and eliminate non-complying actions. The next frontier for the company’s research and development will be to create an AI tool that would predict faulty behavior, warn the technician, and give corrective instructions.
With the integration of AI tools within the MRO Suite, the specific behaviors of each airline and MRO providers on line operations or base maintenance could be identified, and their compliance with standards defined by the companies could be verified. Through a feedback analysis, such tools could also help optimizing execution times and improve efficiency.
The integration of AI tools to the MRO Suite could help identify the exact behavior of each airline and MRO provider during line operations or base maintenance. This could help verify their compliance with standards defined by the client company. Through a feedback analysis, such tools could also help optimizing execution times and improve efficiency.