Helicopter engine maker Turbomeca has launched an online engine maintenance tracking system called Boost (bank of online services and technologies). The company describes it as a highly secured, web-based application developed in association with IBM that will allow operators to access real-time, personalized engine data, enrich their own fleet maintenance management and provide direct 24/7 support from Turbomeca.
Launch customers are Heli-Union, HeliDax, Helicopters Italia, Advanced Helicopter Services and Bristow Group. The first customer will go 100-percent paperless in June by managing its engines with Boost. The system integrates the electronic engine logbook, technical publications and configuration manager. The electronic engine logbook is linked directly to the interactive electronic technical publications tailored to the configuration of each customer’s engines and an electronic configuration manager to track technical upgrades and modifications. Boost is hosted on an IBM online secured database that uses a digital signature system.
Using Boost ensures that all engines are quality and airworthiness compliant, said Turbomeca senior marketing manager Denis Lefebvre. It also ensures that mechanics working on the engine get the precise information they need for that particular engine, he said. Each time a maintenance task is performed on an engine, Boost performs a consistency check and will warn if something is amiss with the configuration of the engine. The system also scans fleets against service bulletins. Lefebvre said the system is expandable. “The next step for us will be between configuration data, usage data and technical data to build more and more services.”
“We have an opportunity together to transform the way helicopters are supported in the field,” said IBM’s David Reese, who emphasized the reliability and security of the system. Reese said the data in the electronic logbooks presents a future opportunity. “We know from our work in advanced analytics that there is tremendous value from the data in paper logbooks that isn’t being captured today for predicting and analyzing failure; Boost marries the physics-based information with that from technicians and logbooks.”