ADAC Luftfahrt Technik MRO achieves 99% stocktaking accuracy

• Automatic replenishment of consumable aircraft parts; this was identified as a quantum leap;
• The ability for materials forecasting and planning was a must;
• Improved and faster materials request processing was desirable;
• Improved repair order processing was also wanted;

• It was expected that the new solution should be able to manage vendors and suppliers;
• ALT was especially interested in improvements in stocktaking actions – at the time, taking stock was insufficient, people-intensive, and imprecise;
• And, last but not least, the business wanted improved monitoring of life-limited parts (LLPs).

• As has already been mentioned, the prevention of paper accumulation was one of the most important enhancements sought;
• There was also a wish to achieve speed, accuracy, and ease of work for everybody involved by linking part numbers to every single task on a task level;
• As maintenance staff were traveling to line maintenance stations located at hospitals throughout Germany and the Netherlands, the new application would have to be capable of using equipment for electronic signatures;
• All involved business units were aiming for standardization of reports;
• With regards to external customer business, improved labor tracking was a must;
• It was particularly important to be able to differentiate between mechanics’ and inspectors’ skills through the sign-off;

• Finally, document linking capability was identified as an asset in order to have fast internet access to the manufacturer’s approved maintenance library

Rotary aircraft maintenance in an air ambulance environment is challenging in areas such as ‘robbing’ components from one helicopter in order to install them in another one to ensure the availability of that helicopter. For this purpose, aircraft and component configurations defined in the application would enable the planning department to easily monitor parameters. Short-term and long-term maintenance planning activities should benefit from aircraft and component maintenance programs adapted to the manufacturer’s master servicing manual. ALT expected an improvement from the introduction of maintenance forecasts and the establishment of a fully functional ‘aircraft next due’ report. Reliability of data had to be achievable with a single data repository and single source entry of data.

Having established to its own satisfaction what qualities, capabilities, and features were required in any new system, ALT management was now able to proceed to a software selection process based on that ‘wish list’

In 2006, ALT conducted some market research from which 14 vendors who were supplying an appropriate MRO IT solution to match the above business requirements were identified. Requests for proposal (RFPs) were issued to seven of those vendors and, based on those proposals, four vendors were invited to product presentations and workshops.

On the graphic above, it is possible to see the key aspects that ALT had in mind for its new application. Participating vendors were assessed in respect to the degree of correlation with ALT’s main functionality requirements within their standard software and their consultancy competence. The chart shows the different positions in respect of these factors for the invited vendors and whether they were conducting a presentation or a workshop. In the end, Ramco Aviation Solutions fulfilled most of ALT’s expectations and, following this process, was selected to supply the new system. The selection of Ramco was for a number of reasons.

The benefits that had been identified as desirable or required from the new system were met by Ramco and their consultancy competence was impressive. Also impressive was the range of their applications across a number of business areas as confirmed by the experience of a number of their customers and users around the world.

Specifically, the factors on which ALT decided to go with the Ramco solution were:

• As a web-based system, the Ramco solution is accessible from all of ALT’s maintenance facilities;
• It offers the possibility of monitoring over 10 inheritable parameters, especially those for engine, generator, and turbine cycles, and for rescue winches – a specific issue with rescue helicopters;
• There is the ability to show a modifications status history for the aircraft and components;
• It facilitates the implementation of an automatic forecasted ‘maintenance due’ report;
• The solution offers high coverage of all business processes;
• The expected quantum leap for logistics with respect to material requests, orders, procurement, stores, and accountancy

This schematic (above) demonstrates to what extent function modules of the new MRO system are in use at ALT. In summary, it shows that modules for engineering and programs, materials management, maintenance, sales, and finance and accounting are more than 90% operative (blue boxes indicate a process handled by the new system). Still out of the scope of the Ramco system is flight operations: which is why ADAC and ANWB are pursuing their own electronic flight deck solution. In addition, standard reports, embedded workflow, eSignature, and auto-uploads are operative.

One fundamental element of the migration process was the formation of a qualified ‘key user’ team (see below). The ’key user‘ team consisted of an in-house advisory board and various business unit key users and co-key users. It represents the interface between the Ramco team and every single user in ALT. It soon became clear that the key user function is a full-time job during implementation and migration. After go-live, the key users were still active, but the good progress of implementation and the spread of know-how across the end-user community over the post-go-live period reduced the direct involvement of ’key users’ as Ramco Champions.