While its sales lag, Sikorsky remains concentrated on supporting a fleet of some 1,000 civil helicopters worldwide, said company director fleet management supportability and training Simon Gharibian. Its biggest focus, Gharibian added, “is to ensure availability of the aircraft, that is operating and available and ready for a mission.”
To that end, over the last two years Sikorsky (Booth N5315) has made significant progress reducing aircraft on ground (AOG) turnaround time, Gharibian said. In 2016, AOG turnaround time dropped 66 percent and total AOG volume dropped 72 percent. “We've seen a further 20 percent drop on the turnaround time, so now we are averaging under our original target of 24 hours. We've gone as low as 16 hours on monthly averages and an additional drop of 30 percent in monthly occurrences,” he pointed out, crediting the improved performance to better process improvement and forecasting.
“It's about having the right parts in the right place at the right time. That's been significantly helped by increasing utilization of our forward stocking locations and tracking how effective they have been in servicing the demand of the region they cover," Gharibian said. "The reduction in volume has been achieved by leveraging the inventory for AOGs and routine and urgent orders so they don't age into AOGs.”
Achieving this level of performance encompasses several elements. It starts with Sikorsky's four forward parts-stocking locations and its Atlanta parts hub, expanding the number of parts the company is stocking and improving inventory turn rates, according to Gharibian. Then it extends to Sikorsky's initiatives and relationships with service centers and customers, as well as the company's recent service-related innovations.
Sikorsky has 23 authorized service centers worldwide, including the addition of Thai Aviation Services last year. Gharibian said Sikorsky works closely with the service centers to ensure quality and keep costs “as low as possible for our customers.”
More than a decade ago, Sikorsky formed a maintenance review steering group with customers that convenes every six months to review inspection intervals, maintenance manuals, and specific tasks. Gharibian said the group “just continuously hammers at tasks and removes inspections that we feel are not necessary. We constantly take feedback from experienced users and roll that into the maintenance program.”
This approach has produced demonstrable savings. On the S-92, for example, the first major inspection has been pushed out from 1,250 to 1,500 hours. “We've been able to shift hundreds of line items to that later inspection interval. At the same time, we've been able to eliminate or move out inspection intervals at some of the lower time periods altogether thanks to some very rich customer data.”
And there is a lot of data. “We already have 1.25 million hours of maintenance and HUMS data from the S-92 and we want to take advantage of this data to ensure we keep inventory and positioning as efficient as possible,” Gharibian said. Now, Sikorsky is going to get that data faster.
Last year Sikorsky—in cooperation with PHI and Metro Aviation—added real-time health-usage and monitoring (HUMS) capability to the S-92, not only adding to its maintenance history data base, but speeding maintenance and operational decision making. The system, which uses Outerlink Global Solutions, enables operators to view, assess, and track aircraft data, as well as provide additional information to aircraft crew and ground support teams to enhance operational and maintenance decisions.
It automatically monitors 5,000 parameters coming off the aircraft, allows live HUMS download either on demand by pilots or ground crews or can be automatically triggered by major event on the aircraft such as a caution or warning. Live HUMS information can rapidly speed maintenance, thanks to Sikorsky's next-generation customer portal, Sikorsky360, Gharibian said.
“In the last year we've been able to tie all our digital tools together into an integrated support network. Now HUMS information comes off the aircraft, goes into a maintenance management system and interactive technical manual than can provide recommendations on needed maintenance very rapidly. That's integrated and tightly coupled with the new Sikorsky360 customer portal so that the customer knows what maintenance they need to do with recommendations for parts and consumables to order in a shopping cart and they can get those parts on order in one seamless system,” he noted.
Going forward, Gharibian said Sikorsky would continue to leverage investments in “speed, autonomy, and intelligence” to reduce customer costs by working with the FAA to expand usage-based parts and components lifing and developing new ways its aircraft can be flown more efficiently—in ways that extend the lives of critical parts and components.
Sikorsky remains focused on supporting a fleet of some 1,000 civil helicopters worldwide, said company director fleet management supportability and training Simon Gharibian. Its biggest emphasis, Gharibian added, “is to ensure availability of the aircraft, that is operating and available and ready for a mission.”
To that end, over the last two years Sikorsky (Booth N5315) has made significant progress reducing aircraft on ground (AOG) turnaround time, Gharibian said. In 2016, AOG turnaround time dropped 66 percent and total AOG volume dropped 72 percent. “We've seen a further 20 percent drop on the turnaround time, so now we are averaging under our original target of 24 hours. We've gone as low as 16 hours on monthly averages and an additional drop of 30 percent in monthly occurrences,” he pointed out, crediting the improved performance to better process improvement and forecasting.
“It's about having the right parts in the right place at the right time. That's been significantly helped by increasing utilization of our forward stocking locations and tracking how effective they have been in servicing the demand of the region they cover," Gharibian said.
It starts with Sikorsky's four forward parts-stocking locations and its Atlanta parts hub, expanding the number of parts the company is stocking and improving inventory turn rates, according to Gharibian. Then it extends to Sikorsky's initiatives and relationships with service centers and customers, as well as the company's recent service-related innovations. Sikorsky has 23 authorized service centers worldwide.
More than a decade ago, Sikorsky formed a maintenance review steering group with customers that convenes every six months to review inspection intervals, maintenance manuals, and specific tasks. This approach has produced demonstrable savings. On the S-92, for example, the first major inspection has been pushed out from 1,250 to 1,500 hours. “We've been able to shift hundreds of line items to that later inspection interval. At the same time, we've been able to eliminate or move out inspection intervals at some of the lower time periods altogether thanks to some very rich customer data.”
And there is a lot of data. “We already have 1.25 million hours of maintenance and HUMS data from the S-92 and we want to take advantage of this data to ensure we keep inventory and positioning as efficient as possible,” Gharibian said.
Last year Sikorsky—in cooperation with PHI and Metro Aviation—added real-time health-usage and monitoring (HUMS) capability to the S-92. It automatically monitors 5,000 parameters coming off the aircraft, allows live HUMS download either on demand by pilots or ground crews or can be automatically triggered by major event on the aircraft such as a caution or warning. Live HUMS information can rapidly speed maintenance, thanks to Sikorsky's next-generation customer portal, Sikorsky360, Gharibian said.
Going forward, Gharibian said Sikorsky would continue to leverage investments in “speed, autonomy, and intelligence” to reduce customer costs by working with the FAA to expand usage-based parts and components lifing and developing new ways its aircraft can be flown more efficiently—in ways that extend the lives of critical parts and components.