Planes and Engines
This solution bundle includes use cases associated with assured “effectivity” of the configuration of all flying aircraft and their engines, resulting in extended scheduled airtime, reduced lifecycle costs, and increased residual value.
The deployment of the Digital Twin for the aircraft and its engines as well as the Digital Thread for the supply chain begins here. The Planes and Engines solution bundle tracks a plane across its entire lifecycle—through its journey from its original assembly to its eventual decommissioning often 30+ years later.
Applications
Aircraft Induction into Operator Fleet
The transition of the plane from airframer to operator takes time as the operator prepares its engineering and maintenance team to keep the plane flying over its expected routes. This application speeds up the process, providing a repeatable and scalable template for aircraft induction. This application includes integration into the primary MRO systems and connectivity to the industry procurement engines (EDI,) as well as to contracted MRO providers.
Product Warranty – Plane
Aviation warranty claims rose over 7% in 2020 to just over $1.1 billion. This application collects the required contractual information to support a collaborative engagement between the airframer, tier 1 parts providers, and operator when a potential warranty condition arises. Issues arise in all channels of the warranty cycle, including warranty leakage, customer service issues, as well as both false positive and false negative data results. This application helps all parties achieve their respective accountability for part and plane performance.
Aircraft Recovery from Storage
In early 2021, nearly 30% of the global aircraft fleet was laid up to reduce capacity. Post Covid recovery will result in many thousands of aircrafts returning to the skies over the next three years. These aircraft have been carefully stored and maintained while on the ground in one of the many boneyards / logistics airports around the world. When they come back into service, there may be additional maintenance, part swaps, upgrades or full conversions as they return to service. SkyThread treats the re-entry into service as an induction event and trigger the full part, documented digital twin for that aircraft as it resumes its mission.
Aircraft Resale and Redelivery
The cost of a resale and redelivery runs between $1 to $5 million per aircraft, and well over 1,000 aircraft are resold and redelivered each year. Post COVID pandemic, global routes and their fleets will be reconfigured. Furthermore, new technologies are working their way into new and old aircraft which will improve their operational effectivity. This will result in many older aircraft being reconfigured into new lives. With each resale and redelivery, the configuration will drive the value of the aircraft. SkyThread works with aircraft sellers and buyers to develop a certified configuration of the aircraft to facilitate its resale and redelivery into a new fleet.
Aircraft Conversion
The growth of cargo fleets are expected to grow by more than 60% over the next 20 years covering both new and converted aircraft. For passenger aircraft, the pandemic is forcing airlines to create new strategies for interior and IFE redesign to optimize passenger comfort and safety. Most conversions make heavy use of content that was considered “customer furnished equipment” in the original aircraft delivery. An aircraft conversion requires a high level of collaboration between the airline, the conversion facility, and the various suppliers and contractors providing equipment for the aircraft. Blockchain is an effective vehicle for facilitating this collaboration, along with simultaneously documenting the parts coming on and off aircraft and the resulting revisions to master configuration data.
Aircraft Lease Return
Today, over 45% of global commercial aircraft are leased, and that number is expected to grow. Leasing is a complicated financial transaction both at inception of the lease and on return of the aircraft. It’s a contract that can be codified into the blockchain along with recording the initial configuration of the aircraft at lease. SkyThread tracks that aircraft over its leased life, facilitating an efficient lease return. Contracts may require a specific configuration of the aircraft on return along with the proper documentation of the life limited parts. Much of this information can be harvested from the operators MRO systems, but we’ve seen many instances of outdated information in the records requiring forensic investigation. The digital twin of each aircraft, enabled by SkyThread, facilitates these data transition processes
Aircraft Decommission and Part Out
All good things come to an end, even trusty aircraft. Some 700 aircraft per year are reaching the end of their operational lives and the number is growing. There will be an acceleration of aircraft retirements due to both the global pandemic, new visions around what future fleets will look like, and the availability of more efficient and reliable aircraft. From an aircraft parts standpoint, the industry benefits from SkyThread’s work to inventory all parts on planes as they arrive in the storage facility to be parted out. As still useable parts on decommissioned planes are placed back in service, we will continue tracking their life on blockchain. For those parts that are declared unserviceable, we will record that condition to be sure those parts do not find their way back into the supply chain.
The Planes and Engines Lifecycle Bundle will benefit from future analytics around fleet compositions and configurations. This information will better inform the operational analytics that have been built over the past decade to predict aircraft performance and avoid unnecessary repairs.
For more information on the Planes and Engines solution bundle and its applications, please contact: info@skythread.aero.