eMaintenance-Information logistics for maintenance support

Today's providers of maintenance and in-service support related to modern aircraft are facing major challenges. A central problem with Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) as well as support of aircraft and other complex technical systems, is to manage the ever-increasing information flow and system complexity. Both military and commercial operators need to reduce aircraft downtime and maintenance man hours. Increased manual information management has the opposite effect, inducing unnecessary cost and affect efficiency negatively. Organizations developing and providing maintenance support products and in-service support does also need to improve the capability to efficiently exploit the increasing amount of digital product information and design data provided together with hardware (HW) and software (SW) products from aircraft manufacturers, sub-system suppliers and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM). One way to increase aircraft availability and improve maintenance and support efficiency, is to speed up the turnaround time for scheduled and unscheduled maintenance. The ultimate goal is risk-based utilization and support, where true Condition-Based Maintenance (CBM) is integrated with current operational requirements and available resources in real-time. This aims at the elimination of all preventive scheduled maintenance based on fixed time intervals and execution of only corrective maintenance that has been predicted and turned into scheduled maintenance facilitated by proper support. To address the challenge of information logistics of digital product data and information within maintenance in-service support, providers need to adapt new methodologies and tools that enable full utilization of the advantages of digital product data and information in processes and business models, e.g., Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA). To implement such improved support solutions in a global-support environment, eMaintenance is seen as one important building block. eMaintenance includes monitoring, collection, recording and distribution of real-time system health data, maintenance-generated data as well as other decision and performance-support information to different stakeholders independent of organization or geographical location, 24 h a day, 7 days a week (24/7). eMaintenance has the potential to improve the management and performance of activities related to the whole maintenance process, and thereby improve the dependability, safety and Life Cycle Cost (LCC) of critical systems. This can be realized through a coordinated application of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) throughout the maintenance and support processes, thus integrating Built-in Test (BIT) systems, external tests at different maintenance echelons, technical information, diagnostics, prognostics and other sources of support information. The purpose of this paper is to present some results from a joint academic and aerospace industry research project, describing requirements and expectations that are important in a global-support environment, and also to propose some central components in an eMaintenance framework that integrates maintenance and ICT perspectives. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.