Boeing Global Services, one of Boeing’s three business units, headquartered in the Dallas, Texas is making headway towards their goal of market domination with many recent business developments.
They announced service enhancements to its integrated digital solutions portfolio saying these will enable better, faster operational decision-making for customers. The announcement comes alongside a series of agreements and orders that they say demonstrate the value of the portfolio.
“The amount of data coming off an airplane will double in the next twenty years,” said Mike Fleming, vice president of Commercial Services for Boeing. “We are evolving our portfolio of tools and developing new applications and analytics to help customers take action to improve their operations.” New integrated digital solutions include Crossmos, FliteDeck Pro RouteSync and AnalytX.
Boeing has acquired rights to the Crossmos software product from Frankfurt, Germany-based CrossConsense. The application will be adapted for development of a new Boeing Mobile Logbook, providing a full-fleet solution to enable flight and maintenance crews to enter and share maintenance information.
Jeppesen’s FliteDeck Pro electronic flight bag has been enhanced with a new weather layer feature that provides increased situational awareness from enhanced data, integrated NOTAM and other flight data updates.
An application version of Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen’s Fuel Dashboard Pilot Insight enables pilots to make informed decisions on discretionary fuel in as little as 10 seconds.
Boeing’s new Reliability Advisor tool uses data analytics to automate and enhance the process of using logbook data to identify and address cabin maintenance and reliability issues across an airline’s fleet.
Boeing’s new RouteSync tool streamlines the pre-flight process by instantly uploading flight plan and aircraft performance data, eliminating three to five minutes of prep time on domestic flights and up to 15 minutes on international routes (see related story page XX).
Boeing also announced new digital solutions agreements, all powered by Boeing AnalytX. Air Europa will adopt Software Distribution Tools and Airplane Health Management (AHM) for its 737 MAX fleet. AHM generates real-time, analytics-based predictive alerts while Software Distribution Tools enable airlines to securely manage digital ground-based data exchange and host data locally. Boeing also says it will deploy Maintenance Performance Toolbox across its mixed fleet, which delivers real-time access to information that technicians need to quickly resolve airplane maintenance issues. (See related information from Boeing in our Big Data story beginning on page 38).
Travel Service will deploy Software Distribution Manager for the 737 MAX and Maintenance Performance Toolbox for its Next-Generation 737 and 737 MAX fleet. Software Distribution Manager is a cloud-based solution enabling airlines to manage the secure flow of operational data to and from the aircraft while on the ground.
Boeing also announced an expansion of its parts program, called Integrated Material Solution (IMS), which it says will help airline customers’ meet growing supply chain requirements. This capability streamlines a customer’s supply chain by combining multiple services from Boeing’s parts solutions portfolio into one fully managed material solution. Integrated Material Solution provides demand planning for consumables, expendables and customer furnished equipment with management of rotable parts. IMS leverages Boeing’s scale with 24/7 parts support and more than 12 million parts in inventory at more than 75 parts depots worldwide.
“The creation of Integrated Material Solution is in direct response to what our customers have been asking for,” said Fleming. “Carriers want the benefit of a dependable supply chain that swaps operational complexity for stability.”
Along with the enhanced IMS capability, Boeing announced a number of agreements to provide supply chain solutions, including a two-year agreement for component management, test, repair and overhaul with Boeing subsidiary Aviall with El Al Israel Airlines; and two 777-200F landing gear overhaul and exchanges added to its existing contract with Lufthansa Group.