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CASE STUDY: JetBlue improves out-of-services management and much more
Author: Matt Ward Senior Manager, Maintenance Operations Center, and Akeem Chase Maintenance Controller, both at JetBlue
SubscribeMatt Ward Senior Manager – Maintenance Operations Center and Akeem Chase Maintenance Controller, both at JetBlue, share how a new system has opened so many doors for better fleet maintenance management
The main thrust of this article is about how JetBlue has gained the ability to better manage its fleet and, in particular, deal with aircraft out-of-service events. But, to better set the scene we’ll first give readers a brief introduction to JetBlue itself.
JETBLUE
JetBlue is a value carrier that operates a fleet of Airbus A320 and 321 aircraft, including NEO and Long-Range models, as well as A220s and a fleet of Embraer E190s which are in course of being retired to be replaced with A220 deliveries by 2025. The airline is primarily a domestic carrier in the USA but with a strong Caribbean presence and trans-Atlantic operations to Dublin, Edinburgh, London Gatwick and Heathrow and Paris Charles de Gaulle as well as Amsterdam. JetBlue also has a presence in Latin America. We fly to nearly 120 airports across multiple markets.
BEFORE AIREXPERT
The aircraft out-of-service processes before AireXpert involved a lot of emailing, many phone calls and a lot of chasing down notes. We would receive an out-of-service request with an email and then we would wait for and make a number of phone calls, in all of which we were using up an incredible amount of time, energy and data in order to be able to make something happen. Regular out-of-service cadence calls were routine and sometimes still are: if we exceed a specific threshold, we might have a cadence call. However, in some cases in the past, we had to schedule cadence calls every so many hours and direct dial into stations in order to find out what was happening with that case in question and then try to divert the appropriate resources to the problem.
Whatever the problem was, we ended up searching for information every time that it was needed because our inbox at Maintenance Control might get a hundred emails an hour so you can imagine how quickly information would disappear down the order; you could hardly ever find the email(s) with the information that you wanted.
HOW THINGS HAVE CHANGED WITH AIREXPERT
If the process before required a lot of energy; the process now requires, maybe, half or a third of the energy needed to find the necessary emails, send more emails and make the necessary phone calls organizing resources to resolve the problem. Most of these resources are now enabled to organize themselves around a problem and resolve it.
It was an organic beginning, at JetBlue, with AireXpert which is an easy-to-use platform. The people in the airline including the technicians are favorable towards this simplified product that can be used through a mobile device or a desk-top PC.
Before the implementation process started, there were a number of coordination meetings between JetBlue and AireXpert to set expectations; we were looking to build the structure for the pilot project and it worked out very well. We were very careful and set out specific expectations on how we were going to implement the new solution and what we expected our users to do in order to use the solution properly. We established protocols for that and published them through an information notice. In reality, our people were already looking for this kind of technology so that the AireXpert solution soon took off and became popular, especially with the technicians and maintenance controllers, as well as the senior leadership… everybody likes using AireXpert. There really weren’t any major pain points in implementing the solution; there were no issues about the product, the interface or the users’ relationship with the solution; it was just very easy.
WHAT AIREXPERT DOES FOR JETBLUE
We haven’t previously had the level of visibility into our out-of-service events that we do now with AireXpert, the amount of collaboration between our tech support group, our engineering group, our technician group, inspectors… it’s been fantastic. We’ve been very pleased with the outcome and find that we are coming to better conclusions and quicker, as far as out-of-service duration is concerned, we are making better choices when it comes to logistics and moving items from one station to another in anticipation of resolving an issue, and it’s helping our decision making. It’s also helping us with our long-range market and, particularly ETOPs (Extended-range Twin-engine Operations) over to Europe.
Our VPs took to the product right away; they enjoy using it and it is allowing us to get near-real-time feedback without having to use the phone. We have multiple aircraft scheduled to turn at a specific time, it would simply not be possible to manage if we had to use the phone all of the time. It’s definitely a tool that has helped us to increase efficiency and allowed the operation to move on-time.
Time is the biggest saving but it’s also helped us to centralize information around specific aircraft. As an airline with 300 airplanes, you can imagine the number of emails that go into the Maintenance Control Center every day; with AireXpert, that information is filtered to the specific airplane that it’s related to, there is no need for us to go searching for information. It also puts all the roles into one event around that aircraft, it has a centralizing effect that definitely has been good for efficiency in that you don’t have to look for information. If you want to know something about a particular airplane, you just click on it on the screen and all the information for that airplane is there instead of having to search through those thousands of emails already mentioned above. That centralizing effect has certainly been great for the maintenance controllers but its also the same for technicians in that they know where to put the information; also, the engineers know where to put the information with the maintenance process centralized around the airplanes. In maintenance we like to think of the airplanes as our customers and we work to maintain them. AireXpert allows us to organize maintenance functions and processes around a particular airplane.
THE BUSINESS CASE AND IMPLEMENTATION
The business case for implementing AireXpert was the amount of time saved in shortening the duration of out-of-service events and a couple of other metrics. Those minutes, sometimes hours, saved could be translated into dollars and the dollars associated with the value of the product which meant that the solution paid for itself and earned its place in the JetBlue network.
We started off holding talks and meetings with AireXpert to really get an understanding of what the product is, how it works, who the team is and how they were going to support us. They put a plan in place to come on site, train our technicians and, later on, go on to train our business partners, using virtual training, and they’ve done a fantastic job.
We planned over four to six months of meetings, discussed terms of the trial, and established that we would conduct a six-month proof of concept trial. We got our IR resources behind it and integrated AireXpert with TRAX, our M&E system so that we were able to roll out a product that was already integrated and was ready to start producing positive outcomes right away. For the go-live we established a procedure for how to use the product by publishing an inform notice which was essentially a ‘how to use’ guide along with the expectations for how the product would work.
We went ahead and launched to POC, ahead of which we were using our corporate communications team who were pushing out articles and newsletters about what we intended to do, what we intended to achieve and when it was going to start. It was broadcast throughout our entire work group that this was coming, that we were going to do something new. In JetBlue, there is a daily call at nine-o-clock where all of our leadership team gathers and we discuss the day’s operations. On that, we would say when we had AireXpert coming. For whoever had an interest in the areas affected by the new solution, there were a couple of Teams meetings, with people such as station leadership, where we discussed the product and answered questions. We recorded a ‘how to’ video which was pushed out into the system with the corporate communication. The AireXpert team also put together several ‘how to’ videos and posted them on their website; everyone knew where to go if they needed help. The technical assistance and technical support function from AireXpert has been fantastic: they’re very responsive. If we had any questions or if any of the technicians had any questions there was a button on the screen to contact AireXpert and get their issues resolved. It was a very easy way to get support. Overall, there was a lot of work but it paid dividends and was completely worthwhile.
The implementation of AireXpert did involve some process changes for JetBlue which were all prescribed within the info notice but basically it was arranging how the flow of information was going to come into and be received by Maintenance Control. We were looking to enable the platform to wean us from an email dependency. We wrote that into the policy and said that we were going to drive this data into AireXpert. It doesn’t supersede our regulatory requirements and TRAX will always be the matter of truth, as it always has been; but this is an important troubleshooting and efficiency aid which we ought to utilize to its fullest extent.
We have many users who are now part of AireXpert including the aircraft on ground (AOG) team, our inspection department, the engineering group and our Engine Program scheme which looks after our engine assets – we are now able to see potential issues that they have to plan for. They are involved and all of our engineering disciplines are involved. Risk management is also involved so that, if there is something that needs their attention, they can go ahead and be part of that. Even the warranty group is there as well as our systems Ops controllers and the duty pilots. There’s a lot of information with the purpose to make everyone aware what is happening if, say, we have a pending test flight or we have a pending maintenance event that we’re going to have to accomplish. That’s what helps the flight ops team plus, if the systems controllers on the floor who are running the airline will want to know what is going on with a specific out-of-service event, all they have to do is look into AireXpert and they can know the current position. It has turned out to be more than we thought it was going to be. Because of that change of where the information is coming from, and how it’s distributed, all the above is now possible.
USING AIREXPERT
We’ve had a lot of feedback from internal users and that feedback was all positive which in and of itself has been incredibly valuable. Any skepticism that we faced, and there was some before the implementation, disappeared with both internal and external users when they realized how quickly and effectively you could get information to them.
In a lot of ways, the best thing about AireXpert is its flexibility. For instance, there are people who don’t want to download the software to their personal phones and that is no problem as there is a text message solution or a WhatsApp solution so that they don’t have to download anything but can still participate. It is an information resource and there are multiple ways to use it. They can use a web browser, they can use a mobile phone, they can use text messages or email, and still get the information centralized on that airplane; flexibility of it is very important.
Out-of-service has proved to be the gateway in to AireXpert but, now that we have it, almost every week we are finding different ways to use the software to our advantage creating new use cases that are interesting and mostly centered around a communication barrier. For instance, with South America, we’re not all well-versed in the local languages so we’ll have a digital replication of a log page which will initiate an out-of-service event with them. We use WhatsApp because that’s pretty much the only way that we’re going to get information to that team and they’re very well versed in its use. We’re able to transmit in plain language exactly what needs to go into the log book in order to resolve their issue and that has been one hundred percent effective. Once the appropriate actions are done, we will help them document everything that they’ve done accordingly and then send it to them along with the appropriate references, and the language barrier is effectively knocked down.
FUTURE DEVELOPMENTS
We just keep finding new things that we can do with the AireXpert solution and that is really exciting. We have more opportunities to use the platform and we’re excited for when we start getting new roll-outs, new features and how we can integrate with our other systems, to help us automate and become more effective every day.
We plan on implementing automation for what every flight cycle brings back, and intend to integrate with our flight domain which was through TOPS. Then we will push that flight data into the system and utilize TRAX, our existing TRAX integration, to feed in the open items to tell where the airplane is. We’ll be able to follow it through AireXpert with alerts; the system will update and it will issue a new re-inspect order in the next city. There are a lot of potential opportunities but we’re between leveraging it for ETOPs turns, utilizing it for overcoming a language barrier and re-inspecting for every flight cycle, a regulatory concern. Probably every operator suffers from the same issue, you have to really keep your eye on the ball. We really find that useful, especially for a carrier without an electronic log book which we’re pursuing separately and, when we get that, it will present a whole new realm of opportunity.
The user interface is fantastic. We have an Amazon Connect phone system into which we might or might not elect to integrate AireXpert, based on the complexity of doing that and ease of use; we’ll have to see how that goes but we do have additional plans for using AireXpert.
Beyond the software, AireXpert as a company are very much interested in what the users of their product have to say and they’ve been extremely receptive to new ideas. When you give them ideas and they implement it, they’ll give you a shout you out in the customer newsletter and thank you, by name, “for this great idea that we’ve implemented’. As a company, they really care about the user base and they are definitely not the type of company that say, ‘this is what we’ve got, take it or leave it’. AireXpert are actively involved in you helping them to make the product better for all the users.
Importantly, when they say that the service is 24/7/365, they mean it. Akeem works nights, 6pm to 6am, and if he needs something, he needs it right away; at AireXpert, there is always somebody there. It’s a connected network, with information from business experts that AireXpert has previously dealt with on a particular topic; the advantage in that is that, because AireXpert has already dealt with them, they likely already have the software which means that you can immediately start sending them documentation back and forth rather than looking through a spreadsheet from ten years ago or trying to find phone numbers in the middle of the night to call somebody. It’s another way to centralize information and makes it easy to access, the key with AireXpert.
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