In aviation cloud encounters come frequently. Some bring stormy weather, others obstruct visibility, and some mark rising-air soaring pilots use for lift.
In the past decade or so aviation professionals also have increasingly encountered clouds invisible to the eye – computer-network “clouds” used to file flight plans, track aircraft maintenance, update digital logbooks, even research mission-critical documents.
All of them via online clouds.
After years of contributing to advances in various aspects of aviation, digital-data clouds increasingly deliver multiple benefits for aviation maintenance providers. These clouds provide faster, safer, less-expensive management of all forms of maintenance data.
Each step in the evolution of maintenance documents – from paper to microfiche to optical discs – provided distinct advantages amid fewer disadvantages. This latest shift, however, reduces or effectively eliminates most, if not all, past shortcomings.
Cloud-based maintenance systems improve the work lives of maintenance technicians, the tracking and accountability capabilities of the accounts people, oversight of inspectors and regulatory officials and, finally, shop owners and operators.
Understanding the advantages begins with understanding cloud computing.
Cloud Basics: Advancements in secure, accessible storage
From a variety of sources, we find a cloud-definition consensus: Data and the software to access it stored on remote servers and provided as a service over the Internet with access via a web browser.
What that means is with cloud-based computing, both the application software and the data it manages exist on remote servers – in the cloud – instead of being stored locally on a company computer, server, or local-area network (LAN).
Mark Culpepper, a Silicon Valley technology expert, published technology author and chief product officer of Aircraft Technical Publishers, explains the benefits of cloud-based systems like those offered by ATP and others.
“A significant amount of time is required to manage and maintain paper, spreadsheets, and other older systems. This information has to be manually delivered across your organization. It's easier to make mistakes with this information.”
There's more, Culpepper says. “You have to store and manage paper and other document forms, and the FAA has rules about maintaining these documents.
“Many operators perceive this as free. But it really has a significant cost to it and once I explain the benefits – in terms of searching for documents, researching maintenance tasks and the time they save in not having to go to 20 different places to retrieve the right piece of paper – they begin to understand the benefits of using the cloud.”
Cloud access exists anywhere one can tap the Internet from any computer using the familiar interface of a web browser and the specific cloud service.
“It used to be that everybody had their own data center, and the challenge was how to maintain this myriad of individual systems while putting the information needed in the hands of people out in the field,” explains Culpepper.
But don't get the impression that cloud technology is new; it's a well-developed, mature technology.
ATP pioneered many advances in the management of maintenance information, including the first digital-data systems for maintenance publications in 1991 and one of the industry’s first digital maintenance tracking solutions in the 1980s.
“About 25 years ago aircraft maintenance information started to go digital, and with cloud computing the movement has really expanded in the last 10 years,” Culpepper says.
Today, the cloud is everywhere, involved with everything. Users of Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, email, web-search engines, and entertainment sites are all utilizing cloud services.
Costs: The Biggest Driver
Moving to a cloud-based operation delivers multiple benefits with limited downsides, Culpepper continues. “The first thing, the most tangible asset, is your company doesn't have to secure and maintain additional servers, software, revisions, and updates.
“You only need a standard computer or mobile device and access to the cloud-based service.” Just maintain the subscription and workers' standard computing devices; then use it.
The system is as close to seamless as possible. The savings are substantial.
“There have been a number of studies that find that maintaining business applications on a single computer system can cost hundreds of dollars – just keeping up with software updates, patches and data updates.
“And that cost is per computer ... and doesn't account for other hidden costs.”
Other hidden costs include software updates and installation downtime – or the costs of IT staff to maintain the company network.
“With cloud computing you're reducing the number of applications you need in your system and reducing the need for the large systems they had to maintain their documents,” says Culpepper.
Trickle Up, Trickle Down
The benefits of cloud-based maintenance records – manuals, logs, maintenance tracking, airworthiness directives, service bulletins, etc. – ripple through the director of maintenance office, business operations, the mechanic on the floor, and in the field.
Information technicians need to access is always up-to-date and the DOM only needs to train them on using the cloud system.
The cloud-services vendor updates data, maintains the cloud servers and the application software customers use to access the data for which they've subscribed.
For the maintenance director this system offers near-instant access to what technicians are working on, provides real-time alerts for maintenance tasks and parts inventories, and the status of jobs in the hangar and remotely.
For technicians in the field, cloud access means never leaving the shop without the correct technical publications, operations manuals, instructions, drawings and aircraft maintenance history.
With that access comes the ability to communicate real-time with other technicians in the shop or factory reps far distant. OEMs can be confident that maintenance operations always have their most-current information.
For the accounts staff, the technicians' maintenance logs help generate accurate invoices in a timely manner – without waiting for time sheets to be collected and turned in.
Business staff can be proactive in contacting operators about required maintenance and reach out to schedule the work.
The benefits trickle directly up to maintenance management, notes Jeff Seiler, director of product management for ATP.
“There are two perspectives on the benefits of cloud-based maintenance records,” Seiler explains. “One is the business-management perspective – the cost savings they can gain. Current maintenance records are everywhere the technicians are, versus when you had to go to a specific computer to get access to that information. And from the mechanic’s perspective, it expands access to maintenance data from any computer with Internet access.” Technicians' productivity is increased, along with compliance and safety, Seiler adds.
And should the field job be in one of the shrinking number of places without Internet access, wireless or otherwise, maintenance technicians can download the relevant materials to their phones, tablets, or notebook computers before they leave their shops.
When It's All Added Up: Costs Go Down
Thanks to cloud-based services, technicians and their supervisors’ need to worry less whether mobile MRO crews carry current documents and instructions when they leave the shop. No more trips back to the shop to retrieve documents, no calls back to have drawings faxed to the field.
With cloud-based information networks maintenance technicians can search, find, and download up-to-the-minute information and instructions. They can use their cloud connections to communicate directly with their operations base or the manufacturers and vendors of the products challenging them.
Benefits include: Eliminating or reducing system maintenance; no document updates to perform; no software upgrades to muddle up servers; and cleaner, faster reports, and log entries. The managers and accountants, inspectors, and document managers all enjoy the benefits.
In the end, it's all about delivering to customers the best service, as quickly and cost-effectively as possible, improving compliance and safety – while reducing costs.
Take My Servers ... Please
In an era of remotely delivered on-site aviation maintenance services the technicians in the field face a constant need for up-to-date documents, instructions, and information live in the field. It must be up-to-date and accessible through whatever computing device the mobile shop employs. Oh, and it is helpful to be able to collaborate with folks at the factory, exchange photos or drawings ... live – as in, real-time.
Having data when and, particularly, where it's needed – at the site of the aircraft – presents a challenge even in today's digitally driven world.
Cloud-based maintenance systems, such as ATP's, provide the solution. It's no wonder that with cloud services like www.aviationhub.aero, more and more aviation shops are saying, “Take my servers ... please!”
For more information, please go to www.atp.com.
Aviation writer and photographer Dave Higdon is owner and creative director of Wichita-based PhotoProse Productions. An instrument-rated private pilot, he began covering aviation in 1980 and never stopped. His background includes covering airlines, business and general aviation for a variety of newspapers and magazines. He can be reached at [email protected].
