AIRCRAFT ENGINE MAINTENANCE company enjoys 'Impresa' reduction in overhaul time

The aircraft industry is governed by safety bodies such as the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) and, in the United Kingdom, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA). These bodies dictate how often and to what level aircraft -- particularly engines -- need to be overhauled and maintained.

For one of the world's leading aircraft engine maintenance companies, Greenwich Caledonian, the implementation of the Impresa enterprise-wide business software from DataWorks in combination with an extensive business process reengineering program -- Project 35 -- has resulted in the reduction in engine overhaul time by as much as 40 percent.

Greenwich Caledonian is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Electric. The company has a reputation for very high standards which have enabled it to extend an aircraft engine's between service hours from 5,500 hours to 7,500 -- and as a result can name most of the world's aircraft fleets as its customers.

When an aircraft engine is serviced, it is removed from the wing and sent to a specialist repair and overhaul shop. Obviously airlines have to plan their removals very carefully. Sandi Paterson, IT and Finance director at Greenwich Caledonian, explains that the service level is not just determined by the airline but also by CAA and FAA air worthiness directives.

One of the greatest challenges for any company within the specialist repair and overhaul sector is forecasting demand for materials, manpower and machinery. While the company knows that there is a constant stream of engines in line for overhaul, until the engine is stripped down and cleaned, traditionally it has had no way of confirming the level of service required -- and hence the amount of labor and components that it would need to complete the process. At Greenwich Caledonian, this was compounded by the prevalent function-orientated approach -- underpinned by stand alone IT applications. Fraser Nairn, IT manager explains, "The business had grown with the computer system into a functional rather than process-driven organization."

The company introduced Project 35, a business process reengineering exercise aimed at reducing the engine turnaround time to an average of 35 days from an industry standard of 50 to 70 days as well as ensuring delivery accuracy to its customers. One of the key aspects of this BPR program was to move the company from a stand-alone product focus to that of a process-orientated approach.

The process of overhauling an engine is relatively straightforward. It is received at the Prestwick plant, stripped, cleaned, inspected, repaired, rebuilt and dispatched. However, within that process are a myriad of issues that need to be addressed if turnaround time is to be kept to a minimum -- not least the availability of relevant components for the rebuild.

In addition to investing in capital equipment as part of Project 35, the decision was taken to replace the stand-alone applications with one integrated system. "We had to improve our IT system, so we developed ACCESS: Advanced Caledonian Complete Engine Support System," says Paterson.

ACCESS is, in essence, the Oracle-based Impresa application from DataWorks -- with additional components developed by DataWorks in order to meet the specific needs of the company. "It supports Project 35 tremendously," says Paterson.

He cited the ability to plan as a critical factor in the company's reduction of turn time. "Using the planning modules within Impresa, in tandem with our historical information, we can plan out a workscope for an engine before it comes in," he says.

Greenwich Caledonian tends to service each engine throughout its life and hence has cradle-to-grave records on its engines' two yearly overhauls. This information is combined with data provided by the aircraft owners as to an engine's flight routes since its last overhaul -- information which is critical since where the aircraft flies impacts the type of damage. For example, flying over the desert will induce sand into the turbines which increases wear, while flying over sea induces salt which causes corrosion.

"Using this information we can generate a forecast workscope," Paterson says. This is then presented to the customer for discussion via EDI -- in some cases Greenwich Caledonian logs straight into its customer's main system to provide engine overhaul information. At the same time, the system generates a forecast Bill of Materials -- denoted materials needed and their associated cost -- information again needed by the customer.

It is at this point that one of the fundamental benefits of the ACCESS system kicks in: assessing the availability of components in stock. Of the inventory, not all is owned by Greenwich Caledonian � customers often place new and used stock at the company's site for use on their engines. In addition, some customers will allow that stock to be used by other aircraft owners, so the management of the inventory is a complex exercise in logistics.

"The system will look at the various locations of stock, tell us what is needed, what we have and what will need to be bought," Nairn says. "It is virtually automatic. Not only can the system handle the pool of inventory, it also includes alternate part logic that will automatically suggest an alternate component to the materials planners that can be substituted into the engine.

WITH MILLIONS OF DOLLARS worth of inventory, reducing that by 10 percent pays for the system many times over. -- Sandi Peterson, IT and Finance Director, Greenwich Caledonian

"The alternate part logic the system uses is unique. In fact, the 'rotable pool' is an incredible beast. Keeping inventory levels down is key; without such advanced early systems we would need a massive inventory. That was a key challenge to get this area working -- and there is no other product on the market that can do this."

Paterson adds, "This really is one of the fundamental benefits of the system. With millions of dollars worth of inventory, reducing that by 10 percent pays for the system many times over."

In addition to reducing the inventory levels, the ability to predict what components will be needed prior to the engine arriving at the plant enables the company to reserve those components from the supplier, generally General Electric. As a result, once the engine comes in, is stripped and the work scope confirmed, that order can be placed based on the reserved parts.

This means that when the engine hits the kitting stage in the process, there is 100 percent component availability. "If we have parts missing at this stage then the build stage will be stopped -- and we will have mechanics sitting around doing nothing," Paterson says. "Using Impresa we can produce a forecast workscope and a forecast bill of materials before we get the engine and ensure we have the components in place to rebuild the engine when it comes in."

Prior to this implementation, Greenwich Caledonian had to wait for the engine to come in, be stripped and cleaned before they knew what parts were needed. So, even if the service was a simple one, not getting the right component in could add up to 25 days to the whole process, delaying the engine's return to the customer fleet.

In addition to overhauling engines at its Prestwick plant, Greenwich Caledonian will also send out working parties anywhere in the world to repair an engine that has been damaged by, for example, a bird strike. Any grounded plane is costly for the airline and speed of repair is critical.

"Impresa generates all the paper work for those work parties at high speed. Using the information on the specific engine, and the problem, it automatically generates the work scope which provides a huge time saving," Nairn says.

The next phase of the development is to start feeding information into Art Enterprise, a system written in an artificial intelligence language in conjunction with DataWorks that will hook into Impresa. "This is a fleet monitoring system designed to monitor the fleet in the air and give very early indications of flight profile," Nairn says. "This will enable us to build up a very high profile picture of what happens to an engine in flight and is, again, aimed at reducing inventory levels by improving our ability to predict the maintenance needs of an engine ahead of time."

Since the implementation of Impresa in October 1996, Greenwich Caledonian has gained significant, tangible benefits. The levels of kits being issued to the shopfloor are in excess of 98 percent complete, inventory has been reduced substantially, and turn time is down to 40 days on average.

In addition, the implementation has supported the company's 'heartbeat' approach whereby an engine is inducted every 24 hours into the plant. The ability to smooth the process and increase turn time through forecasting has significantly supported this approach.

There is also clear visibility of information across the company, enabling customer services to query where an engine is within the facility, the status of the service, how many hours were booked against a certain part of the engine, how much material was used, and whether it was new or used stock. "Management information is far, far better," Paterson says. "We now have one of the best IT systems of any service shop in the world. The ACCESS development has underpinned Project 35 and enabled Greenwich Caledonian to achieve the fastest turn times in the industry -- complementing our reputation for world class reliability."



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