Page 38 - AAA JANUARY - FEBRUARY 2017 Online Magazine

SPECIAL FEATURE

LEFT: The challenge for MRO
providers will be access to the
vast amount of data generated
from a modern jetliner
and verify its operational
relevance

RIGHT: AFI KLM E&M has
trialled a new predictive
analysis programme since July
2016 on the fuel circuits of the
Group’s A380s. Its success has
led to AFI KLM E&M presently
considering the possibility
of extending its use to other
A380 systems and possibly
other fleets, such as 787s and
A350s

monitoring and prognoses for the first time. Jan Stoevesand, Head of Analytics & Data With PROGNOS, AFI KLM E&M aims to
It creates true predictive maintenance Intelligence in Information Management at provide technology solutions in a shift
for Airbus, Boeing or other aircraft,” says Lufthansa Technik, underlines, “We provide towards predictive maintenance models,
Dr. Holger Appel, Program Manager customers with precise knowledge of their for the benefit of airlines’ operational
Monitoring, Diagnosis and Prognosis at fleet condition and enable them to counter performance. As part of its MRO Lab
Lufthansa Technik. Condition Analytics is failures before they occur. Thus, we not only innovation programme, AFI KLM E&M
an independent platform that is not tied to increase aircraft availability and maximise is implementing PROGNOS, a range of
a support contract with Lufthansa Technik. operating hours, we also substantially solutions based on exploiting the data from
It is an OEM-spanning tool whose highly contribute to flight safety.” Condition aircraft systems with a view to improving
sensitive data is safeguarded by Germany’s Analytics by Lufthansa Technik uses a maintenance models and processes. AFI
rigorous data protection laws. The customer multi-faceted approach to improve aircraft KLM E&M capitalises on the vast amount
selects the required fleet and the desired operations. Engineers and data scientists of data generated by Air France and KLM
use cases and is given access to the online analyse flight and MRO data and use them as fleets to develop its PROGNOS solutions,
platform. The use of Condition Analytics a basis for continuously developing analytics and verify their operational relevance
in actual flight operations has already use cases. Once the analytical model has and performance before sharing such
produced beneficial results. In the area of been developed, the system checks the innovations with its customers. PROGNOS
aircraft maintenance, it is vital to be able to customer data for relevant incidents and Engine Health Monitoring (EHM) is being
predict airplane component or equipment supplies the corresponding results to the designed to carry out statistical analyses of
failures and maintenance needs in order to customer automatically. Lufthansa Technik engine data to enable dynamic monitoring
reduce costly downtime, avoid unplanned acknowledges that the major engines are and predict failures using an early warning
out of service times, and to optimise service all working on digital-analytics platforms system, for the fleets of Air France and
crew schedules. With over 1,000 airplanes to enhance predictive maintenance, but it KLM as well as client airlines, says James
to be maintained, Lufthansa had hundreds differentiates Condition Analytics as a tool Kornberg, AFI KLM E&M Director Innovation.
of thousands of log entries, sensor data, pairing analytics and engineering know-how. “PROGNOS EHM is part of a series of
error messages, and maintenance reports “We are confident that we will play a major projects and initiatives focused on Big
that needed to be evaluated in order to role in the industry and it won’t be all OEM Data that have already led to operational
accurately predict and prevent failures. dominated,” says Stoevesand. solutions such as PROGNOS A380, the early
According to Lufthansa Technik, it is now warning and failure monitoring software
possible to predict the life cycle of igniter Tip to Tail Approach used for the A380’s systems, which extends
plugs accurately. This ensures maximum Lufthansa Technik is not alone in tapping the the solution to bigger data volumes,” he says.
performance and efficiency. opportunities for predictive maintenance. Solutions based on the same approach are
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