Aviation View - Dec 2023

7 AVIATION VIEW MAGAZINE VOLUME 3, ISSUE 4 operational safety, enabled effective downtime scheduling and reduced operating costs, all while improving aircraft availability. “While we’ve had some rudimentary predictive health monitoring capabilities in the past,” said Beauchemin, “only with the sensors built into the components of today’s new-generation aircraft are we now able to capture data from the entirety of the aircraft’s systems and take action to plan maintenance to avoid AOGs.” “Actions can now be taken to minimize or prevent schedule disruptions, and that is hugely beneficial to complex flight operations,” Kershaw added. “Additionally, successful implementation of predictive maintenance will improve the efficiency of an operator’s ability to plan and optimize maintenance actions on a timeline that suits operational constraints.” Thanks to increased use of business aircraft, preventing schedule disruptions and improving efficiency is more important to a flight department today than ever. ‘A NEW TYPE OF COOPERATION’ Of course, getting a digital heads-up that there may be trouble brewing in your aircraft is just one of the benefits of predictive maintenance technologies. That forewarning also gives you time to get the affected parts in hand so you can make the change. “There’s a new type of cooperation found in predictive maintenance. When problems occur, operators can share their data with the OEMs so they can share it with their suppliers to ensure that the required parts are available to support the fleet,” Kerton said. “If the problem is widespread enough, the OEM can get the part’s supplier to redesign the component to mitigate the issue in the future.” Yes, having the right spares in stock at the right time can sure make a DOM look like a genius, especially in today’s “you-want-it-when?” supply chain environment. “The aircraft manufacturing industry’s competitive sales will drive the use of predictive data for both OPENING L INES