aviation

In many industries, neutral data platforms are currently being developed for data acquisition, data preparation and processing and subsequent provision to commercial users, public authorities (e.g. statistical offices) or security agencies. Downstream and separated from the data platform, commercial services will then be developed on the corresponding service platforms. Examples of service platforms in the aviation environment are Aviatar, Skywise or AnalytX. The interaction of the platform and service entities, possibly even across industries and with public institutions, has not yet been conclusively researched and established both on the technical level with regard to data security, data quality, data classification and data assignment to categories such as personal, security-relevant, anonymous only etc. and on the legal level with regard to data sovereignty, intellectual property and observance of aviation-specific regulations.

Due to high safety requirements of the aviation industry, the appraisal and documentation of all repair processes, including the final certification of the affected components play a central role. The documentation of all parts of the workflow including materials and machine process parameters as well as the obtained test results leads to inefficient processing times and high costs. To address this problem, Lufthansa Technik AG Hamburg launched the project “Installation of a plenum production” and illustrates how an extensive digitalization and automation of the underlying processes can lead to a reduction in processing time of up to 70%.

In aviation anonymous incident reporting systems (IRS) have been set up for decades to reduce or to control operational incidents and risks systematically. The aim of such instruments is to fall back on existing knowledge of the employees in order to optimize operational performance. The system can only be successful in the long run, if anonymity and non-punitivity are guaranteed. Moreover, the company requires a constructive error culture.

Changes within organisations and processes define the current processing landscapes of industrial companies. A permanent orientation to competitiveness, the aspiration to effectivity and efficiency as well as the continuous progress in technologies and systems, necessitates an overall coordination of relevant processes. Quite obviously this means today no longer to focus only on production and assembly processes. Only the exact interaction of involved areas - besides production/assembly even areas as logistics, quality and process planning - make a production economically ideal. A leading aircraft-producer realizes significant production-changes by modifying the static (dock-)manufacturing system into a trend-setting flow line-concept.