Welcome to the State of the Industry issue. The reason behind presenting this annual compilation of thoughts and statements from some of the more recogniseable MRO leaders and their organisations is to bring together this breadth of experience into one readable issue for you, our readers.
Recently we have heard many comments that the media makes (or fakes) the news. The objective of the team at Aviation Maintenance in presenting you with this survey, is to publicise a cross-section of opinions, in their own words, on some of the industry’s most talked about issues. They discuss issues that they consider to be important, talk about their investments and how they are proactive or reactive to the MRO industry as it evolves.
While there are always so many questions that can be asked within any industry sector, we adhered to seven split between external, internal and training / education.
The three ‘external’ questions looked for thoughts and ideas about challenges and opportunities within the MRO sector that they believed their organisations were addressing, or needed to address, including any wider concerns. This section included getting their thoughts and experience of additive manufacturing.
The second set of ‘internal’ questions included the one subject being rasied in every international conversation, that of ‘big data’ (incidentally this issue contains a seperate article on this very subject written by contributor Charlotte Adams). We asked how a ‘big data’ strategy could be implemented and what the perceived (and expected) benefits it would bring.
Another high tech development being embraced my a number of organisations is virtual reality and the opportunities that it brings for training and maintenance practises.
Finally we looked at education and training, and whether the quality of education was preparing new hires for a variety of roles within MRO. Comapanies also volunteered some insight into their own training programs and how to motivate and continually develop existing employees.
Report from AEE
Two shows staged by Aerospace & Security Media, this magazine’s parent company were a great success last month. The Aviation Electronics Europe (AEE) and Avionics & Space Testing Expo (AST) expositions and conferences were staged between 25/26th April 2017 in Munich, Germany. The two events attracted over 1,000 attendees from over 38 counties.
The AEE conference program started with joint opening keynotes presented by Hette Hoekema, senior expert navigation, communication, surveillance at the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) who gave an overview of Mandates, New Developments of our Regulatory Material and Future Plans in the avionics sector. Stefanie Erdmann, policy director at Airlines for Europe A4E discussed the latest challenges in policy and directives that could impact on the avionics and aerospace sector. These opening briefs led into a two day conference program.
The launch of the collocated testing event (AST) was welcomed by that community and both events will once again be collated on 19/20th June 2018 in Munich.
“These complimentary events were well received by an international audience and we have plans to make both bigger and further develop their content next year,” said managing director Adrian Broadbent.