Page 7 - World Airnews Magazine January 2020 Edition

MAINTENANCE

WHAT WILL AMOS LOOK

LIKE IN THE FUTURE?

ow will the industry of aircraft maintenance and contin-

Hued airworthiness look like in 20 years and how will these

changes affect the way companies are performing their contin-

ued airworthiness management responsibilities? As part of the

Sentinal research program, EXSYN Aviation Solutions has defined a

confronting vision on the future of continued airworthiness.
For several years a fast movement is taking place in technology

on one side and communication and interaction on the other side.

Collaboration, collective knowledge, digital communities (e.g.

Facebook. LinkedIn and Twitter) and technological developments
in IT hardware. These are the key pillars in this movement. Already
we are able to perform surgery on human individuals where the

doctor is actually on the other side of the world, operating on the

patient via a robot (Howe, RD, Matsuoka, Y. “Robotics for Sur-

gery.” Annual Review Biomedical Engineering. 1999, 01:213. . Or a
more aviation related situation, Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) are

patrolling the middle-eastern skies and the pilots are sitting in a

compound located on US soil. What does all of this have to do with
the future of continued airworthiness?

Well, key in the previous two examples is something which is
defined as “separating the information from its artefact” (Dhar &

Sundararajan , Information Technologies in Business: A Blueprint

for Education and Research, Information System Research, 2007,

18(2)). This means that information is per definition not fixed to

one single person, location or machine. The artefact in the aviation

based situation would be the airline’s continued airworthiness

system and separating in this situation would actually mean to take
data away from the airline and provide it from a central controlled

information system. Such a centrally controlled system contains ued airworthiness information system

all related scheduled maintenance information for the particular would be the integration of this central

aircraft types operated by the airline. And all this information is system with all other relevant informa-

controlled by means of this system. Part numbers, aircraft mainte- tion such as flight planning, material

nance programmes, airworthiness directives, service bulletins, check provisioning, maintenance planning,

intervals, configurations, maintenance documentation and reliability manpower planning, facility planning

programs will become centrally managed information. The only and equipment planning. Again this

organization capable of controlling such a central information sys- trend is already taking place on a local

tem would be the aircraft manufacturers. This trend can already be level at airlines in which airlines choose to

identified in cases where the manufacturers provide a full package utilize a fully integrated system or interface

support with the aircraft that you buy. Evidence of this trend can be between their various IT systems both internally

found in the complete Boeing EDGE programme, the Boeing digital and externally with suppliers.

airline programme and the Airbus e-solutions programme. As a result engineering departments, plan-
However to enable a full separation of information from its arte- ning departments, purchasing departments and

fact we also need to look at unscheduled maintenance. Currently trouble-shooters all become obsolete as each of the

unscheduled maintenance is judged by a human individual who activities they nowadays perform can be fully automated and per-

acknowledges the fact that a certain component on the aircraft is formed more efficiently by automated routines and programmes

not fit for operation anymore and needs to be replaced. Usually centrally controlled by the manufacturer of aircraft. Another result

this acknowledgement is performed according a set of guidelines will be that the human interaction with information systems will be

stipulated in the maintenance documentation of the aircraft. Now greatly reduced and will most likely be focused on providing initial

the challenge is to separate the information required for this judg- data to any system. From that moment the information systems

ment from the human individual. Full Real-life Automated Commu- can function autonomously.
nication (FRAC) between the aircraft and the central information From a regulations point of view it will require the regulatory

system is required to enable this. Again we can see this movement bodies to rethink their approach to continued airworthiness reg-

progressing with programmes such as Embraer’s AHEAD and ulations because the main key drivers for ensuring this continued

Boeing’s Aircraft Condition Monitoring System (ACMS) which are airworthiness will become the responsibility of the aircraft manu-

both systems within an aircraft which transmit data concerning facturer.

faults and aircraft system health to ground stations. Here it is just It will be controlled solely through computerized systems which

a matter of time before sufficient technological developments are are written by human programmers. These systems receive the

available to transmit the full information whether a tyre needs to initial data inputs from human individuals. Additionally it will make

be replaced or a dent is detected in the fuselage of the aircraft. third party suppliers of any kind of aviation software obsolete as all

The growing opportunity for such a manufacturer central contin- systems will be controlled via the aircraft manufacturers. Q
World Airnews | January 2020
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