The Broad Strokes - Everything begins with the manufacture of the aircraft parts and assembly of the aircraft. The Digital Twin of the Aircraft and the Digital Thread of the aircraft parts begins here. There are dozens of citations on these two topics on the web and many companies are angling to “solve” for these key outcomes. But there are gaps in design and deployment of this vision.

• Tier 1 OEM Parts Makers (and ERP systems) – it would help the entire ecosystem if the Tier 1 parts makers could follow their parts for life. Answering the question – “where is my part”.  This would support spares replenishment demand planning, support for new fleet launches, support for aging aircraft and management of spares as aircraft are decommissioned.

• Airframers (and PLM systems) have difficulty “following” an aircraft into the aftermarket to capture the “as flown” configuration of the aircraft. Sure, the CAMO and MRO systems play a key role here, but I’ve lived in that space. There are gaps. Despite the Digital interventions of the airframers, they do not extend to capturing the parts and serialization by tail number.

• Rotable contracts – this is a valuable contract structure for sharing repairable assets across aircraft tail numbers and even between airlines. Many operators have trouble accepting repaired parts in a pool if they don’t have direct visibility to the parts life history. We’ll fix that and make these assets truly sharable.

• USM market – there are 40 million serialized aircraft parts in this space today. Many technology innovations are being introduced to make these parts more visible to the airlines and MRO providers. SkyThread will enable these solutions to add a level of authenticity and provenance to the parts being interrogated to support finding the “right part” and avoid parts falling in quarantine upon arrival.

• Airlines (and MRO systems) - this is where there already is a requirement to know which parts (serial numbers) are on which planes and where they came from. For the most part, we’re there. But in the process of all the manual entry required to remove and install parts, errors occur.  Without the right validation, you may multiple serial numbers recorded in the same part number “slot” of the aircraft or duplicate serial numbers by different airlines.

Within the four walls of any company, we’re more likely to use these systems with a good degree of success but think about something as simple as a Tier 1 parts maker with 3 divisions – manufacturing, customer support and component repairs. There could be 3 instances of an ERP system running within the company where the customer service division dealing with an AOG might have incomplete visibility to the company’s inventories in manufacturing and component repair. Even worse, the airline in question may already have that part somewhere in their line station network, but not visible to the team focused on the AOG. So the Tier 1 may end up paying a penalty on a late or missed delivery when both they and the airline “had an acceptable part”. Visibility is everything. The auto industry began tackling this issue 20 years ago with Rosetta Net.

Why is this important?

Despite all the industry successes, it’s reported that the commercial aviation industry spends about $30 billion a year recovering from maintenance induced irregular operations (IROPS). Planes grounded “mid schedule” where the airline needs to reposition the plane (for repair) and accommodate the crew, passengers, and cargo. This translates to an average of $1.2 million per tail number per year. Maintenance induced disruptions have many causes, well known to the operators. But at the end of the day, it comes down to an unplanned situation on the aircraft (a part) that was not forecast and could not be remediated to continue the plane’s schedule.

Ecosystem Engagement

Most industry IT, process and data efforts today focus on a fraction of the value chain, creating organization, systems and data silos that stifle information flow and value creation. Organizations create these silos due to a lack of trust of the data of others in the ecosystem. By engaging with all the actors in the aerospace ecosystem and many of the systems referenced above, SkyThread for Parts, creates the trust in data needed, eliminating data and process friction. Solutions are hiding in the alignment of the processes and data within PLM, ERP, MRO, MIS, EDI, AHM, Cycles and Analytics – we work directly with your integrators to unleash these opportunities.

Architecture and Implementation

SkyThread is an independent Solution as a Service (SaaS) built using blockchain. The SkyThread Data Layer is a master data “chain of chains” to embrace and engage the stand-alone solutions that create industry value for “all” digital solutions, including ours. The solution is best integrated to the MRO, ERP and EDI systems for maximum value and aligns with airframe and engine lifecycle solutions. We plan to engage all parts and all planes over the next aircraft event cycles.

How to Begin?

Every company has their own ecosystem. We engage the ecosystem.

• An Airline with its MRO network, Tier 1 supplier, and brokers

• An MRO with its primary airline, its component repair shops and other airlines

• A Tier 1 OEM with its airframe customers, brokers, MRO repair centers and airlines relying on spares

• Rotable pools with their airline customers and Tier 1 supply partners

• An engine company, with its full ecosystem

• An airframer with its AHM and FHS commitments

• A lessor with its aircraft and engines under lease

We call these clusters. And of course, at the part level, parts move between these clusters and often sit outside the cluster until they are needed. We’re engaging at the cluster level, not at an individual company level to encourage “learnings” around data sharing and the value it unleashes. You can reach us at info@skythread.aero.