MRO Made Easy

What do American Airlines, KLM, United, and FedEx have in common? Aeroxchange.

The Dallas, Texas-based aviation e-business solutions provider was founded by 13 global airlines in October 2000 and has since wooed 20 additional airlines and hundreds of suppliers in an online subscription based marketplace. Aero-xchange's suite of products including Aerosourcing, AeroAOG, AeroBuy, and AeroRepair, provides a one-stop shop for web-based negotiation tools and strategic project management.

American Airlines is the latest subscriber. Michael Scheeser, the airline's managing director of purchasing, said he chose the solution because it allowed his buyers to search and buy from a database of new, used, and overhauled inventory from manufacturers, distributors, surplus providers, and other airlines. American is also posting its surplus material on Aeroxchange for other global partners' purchasing needs.

"American's turnaround plan is dependent on our ability to lower or remove operational costs whenever possible," Scheeser said. "Aeroxchange's streamlined approach with their full suite of procurement tools will offer American improved efficiencies and cost savings, significantly contributing to this goal."

AeroBuy enables purchasers to locate normal replenishment inventory by part number, complete with online trace and pedigree documents. Aeroxchange's team provides quantitative analysis to assist in developing request for quote (RFQ) requirements and unlimited access to self-managed online negotiation tools such as auction and offer/counter offer for catering, commercial repair, or technical items. And AeroAOG allows airlines to search and borrow active inventory allocations by part number and location, covering 1.4 million parts available at 480 sites globally.

"AeroAOG reduces aircraft downtime by expediting the process of finding parts and providing full electronic support for loan/borrow transactions, as well as micro-level reporting, intelligence, and historic information," said Aeroxchange president and chief executive Albert Koszarek. "AeroRepair management capabilities will allow American Airlines users to conduct full searches, send RFQs, and manage and track repair status error-free direct from their desktop."

Cost reductions come in the form of lower-priced inventory, reduced lead-time to search for, purchase, and acquire necessary materials, improved order administration, less labor to manage parts orders and repair services, and inventory reduction via greater visibility to existing stock. The benefits are measurable. Aeroxchange demonstrates cost savings in each category by comparing what the airlines have paid recently with past costs. KLM and United are reporting significant cost savings.

"KLM has already recognized significant savings on contracts closed and time savings to find and procure technical parts through the help of Aeroxchange," said Jan Witsenboer, KLM senior vice president of corporate procurement and fleet development.

"United conducted its first sourcing event using Aeroxchange's AeroSourcing tool and achieved significant savings," said Chuck Doyle, managing director of materials management for United Airlines. "After we realized the additional cost savings potential through the use of other Aeroxchange products, we purchased the entire product suite. These electronic tools not only afford us a reduction in cycle times, but a single source for all our procurement needs." — By Jennifer LeClaire

Lufthansa CityLine Integrates with SAP, EDS

Lufthansa CityLine, an 80-jet European regional carrier, has succeeded in combining all of its MRO IT (information technology) applications into a single package. With the help of systems integrator EDS, Lufthansa CityLine needed just 19 months to implement EDS's axsMaintenance company-wide. Based on SAP R/3 enterprise management software, which includes specialized aerospace and defense (A&D) applications, axsMaintenance provides Lufthansa CityLine with end-to-end monitoring and control of its MRO process. This means that from the time an aircraft is admitted to Lufthansa CityLine's MRO hangars, through the inspection, parts ordering and installation, and final testing of the serviced aircraft, Lufthansa CityLine's MRO managers know what's happening at every stage of the game.

For this carrier, the decision to use the SAP R.3-based axsMaintenance cut the project implementation from the usual five stages to just three. This is why Lufthansa CityLine was able to complete the entire project in June 2003, just 19 months after it began. "With the axsMaintenance solution, the project team of CityLine needed a far shorter time for familiarization with the new system environment and had an inside view of the new solution on a live system from the outset," said Mark Nowak, chief information officer for Lufthansa CityLine. EDS MRO consultants led the implementation effort, including mapping the airline's MRO functions to match up with SAP's A&D applications. To aid in the transition, EDS provided post-installation support to Lufthansa CityLine by stationing consultants at its hangars to deal with any unexpected challenges. This said, the axsMaintenance installation was apparently achieved with relatively little trouble. — By James Careless

Jet Blue Selects Jouve to Update A320 Documentation

In order to deliver up-to-date Airbus A320 documentation electronically, JetBlue Airways has hired Jouve Aviation Solutions to create a structured authoring environment, which will make it possible to deliver such documents via the web or private internet protocol networks. JetBlue will use this "environment" to add supplements and temporary revisions to its A320 maintenance manuals. The initial project scope includes the primary A320 maintenance manuals, plus engineering authorizations, minimum equipment lists, and configuration deviation lists.

JetBlue has already purchased Jouve's popular AirGTI product suite to allow distribution of its A320 maintenance manuals over the web. AirGTI DocViewer serves as JetBlue's web delivery application, while the AirGTI TR Integrator allows technical publications personnel to incorporate and distribute temporary revisions. JetBlue has also licensed the AirGTI Task Manager application to support job card publishing and integration with the airline's Visaer enterprise resource management system.

"The AirGTI TR Integrator allows airlines to update their maintenance manual content on a monthly or even daily basis, as opposed to waiting for the OEM to issue an update every 90 days," said Mark Ogren, Jouve's senior vice president. "This makes it easier for our customers to comply with FAA regulations and increases passenger safety by ensuring aircraft technicians are working with the most up-to-date service information."

"Jouve's ability to respond to our needs and understand our business processes supports our ultimate vision of a paperless maintenance, engineering, and flight operations environment at JetBlue," said Amir Nasruddin, the airline's director of technical standards. JetBlue currently flies more than 50 A320s, and plans to add 16 more in 2004. — By James Careless

SmartSignal Pursuing OEM Market

SmartSignal, a company that monitors engine and component condition via software-based predictive technology, is expanding its market reach to original equipment manufacturers such as engine, airframe, and component manufacturers.

SmartSignal currently monitors 2,000 turbine engines, according to John Kerastas, director of marketing. Customers include Delta Air Lines and now MTU Maintenance Hannover, which recently signed a contract with SmartSignal.

MTU will use SmartSignal's eCM (equipment condition monitoring) predictive technology as part of MTU's Total Engine Care service. "This partnership will allow us to provide our customers with real-time monitoring on all their engines," said MTU's Stefan Heinsohn, manager Total Engine Care. "The superior fault detection ultimately increases operational efficiency and completes MTU's Total Engine Care solution."

Now, said Kerastas, "we're starting to talk to OEMs." SmartSignal initially targeted end-users, he added, such as airlines. "But ultimately we want to be embedded on OEMs' [products]."

SmartSignal engineers are also looking at offering predictive technology for monitoring other airborne equipment such as APUs, environmental control systems, and even avionics. The benefits of real-time monitoring are well worth the extra cost, according to SmartSignal and include: avoiding catastrophic failures, increasing availability and reliability by decreasing unplanned maintenance events, reducing maintenance costs by enabling repairs to be done to small items before they cause larger problems, and optimizing maintenance and inventory planning.

For OEMs, predictive technology can not only help deliver better service to operators of their products, but also help OEMs keep costs down on long-term service agreements (maintenance cost per hour, etc.), according to Kerastas.