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COLUMN

Meet the predictive maintenance to make even greater
strides in the coming years. Thanks to these
digital developments, the often risk-averse avi-
Intelligent Engine ation industry has pivoted to trusting predictive
maintenance not only to increase performance
and reduce costs, but to better manage risk and
enhance safety.
Predictive maintenance as a term isn’t new—
ROLLS-ROYCE AND IFS TAKE PREDICTIVE as far back as the 1990’s the IFS Maintenix team
ENGINE MAINTENANCE TO THE NEXT LEVEL at IFS has worked with the US Navy to crunch
through engine health monitoring data to model
and predict the failure of engine components.
James Elliott, Principal Business Architect, Accelerate to 2020, and today Rolls-Royce
Aerospace & Defence, IFS is using AI forecasting, supported by IFS, to
help airline customers to automatically update
predicted maintenance deadlines for every
life-limited component inside their engines—a
key part of the Rolls-Royce Blue Data Thread
strategy, a digital information thread connect-
ing every Rolls-Royce powered aircraft, every
airline operation, every maintenance shop and
every factory.

This is all part of the Rolls-Royce vision for the
IntelligentEngine. “The IntelligentEngine is a
form of cyber-physical service where the physi-
cal engine, the services that surround that digital
engine and the Rolls-Royce digital capability
are indivisible,” explains Nick Ward, VP Digital
Systems, Rolls-Royce “The IntelligentEngine
forms a digital twin of a physical engine, with
both connected by data. It is contextually aware
of its own operating conditions, the environment
it’s flying in, the rest of the fleet it is part of,
and it is consolidating that information to make
smart decisions to maximize availability, while
minimising maintenance costs and disruption.”

Data insights flow downstream
to airlines and their passengers
Ninety eight million terabytes of data sounds an awful lot but that’s The benefits of this approach are huge in terms
what, according to an Oliver Wyman MRO Survey, the global fleet of aircraft availability and engine time on wing,
of commercial aircraft could generate per year by 2026. There is which in turn should translate into fewer delays,
now a huge interest among the big aviation players – the OEMs, the an improved moment of service with more sat-
airlines and the maintenance, repair & overhaul (MRO) operators – isfied passengers and bottom-line boosts. One
not just in gathering data but using it—with predictive maintenance of the main causes of aircraft on ground (AOG)
and health monitoring systems now one of the key applications they delays is unplanned maintenance operations. US
are looking at. Bureau of Transportation statistics show in the
last full year of uninterrupted airline operations,
Due to the pandemic, the commercial aviation industry is going 2019, US airlines reported 302 domestic tarmac
through major disruptions and airlines, OEMs and MROs alike are delays longer than three hours, compared with
needing to adapt their business models, and this includes capitalizing 202 in 2018 and 193 in 2017.
on new technologies to introduce time, resource and cost efficien- Rolls-Royce has a fundamental mission that
cies. In particular Digital Twins, but also Artificial Intelligence, IoT and every Rolls-Royce powered aircraft flies on time,
more, are all part of the lexicon and now key components of the new every time with an availability as close as pos-
generation of predictive maintenance solutions designed to make sible to 100%. That works for the airlines that
business processes more agile and adaptive. These technologies own the aircraft, Rolls-Royce as the OEM and
are all about gathering key data insights that are paving the way for passengers themselves. This is where the con-

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