Sikorsky launched its Next Generation Customer Portal on October 11 at the NBAA convention. The new portal consolidates a number of support websites that have served Sikorsky operators for many years, including the Sikorsky360 content library and the former customer portal. Sikorsky (Booth 12901) also unveiled the NextGen Helotrac Maintenance Management System, which is integrated with Sikorsky’s interactive electronic technical manuals (IETMs), maintenance planning, parts ordering and health and usage monitoring services.
Now customers can access a variety of content via a single website, including technical content, publications and notifications and viewing subscription-based services. Operators can also order parts, make claims, search for parts and check inventory, request quotes and shipments, view historical data and report AOGs. All transactions with Sikorsky can also be done online.
“We’ve been working on this a while,” said Simon Gharibian, Sikorsky director, fleet management. “This is the center point for technical data to support helicopters.”
Using the new portal, operators can use Helotrac, for example, to generate a to-do list for upcoming maintenance, view IETMs, create work cards and maintenance instructions and then use that information to specify parts and consumables needed for the work, add those to a shopping cart and place an order. “This connects the dots between maintenance data and the ability to order parts,” he said. “It is allowing customers to leverage all the [improvements] we’ve been doing.”
More than 4,000 users are registered with Sikorsky360, and an average of 2,500 use it every day.
An important factor in putting the new portal into place is to make safety data more widely available. “Our motivation for doing this,” Gharibian said, “is our philosophy is that a well-sustained aircraft is safer. Linking data and linking systems, making it as easy as possible for operators to get information and place orders as quickly and efficiently as possible, all just increases the safety of operations. Coupling our sites together and making them as user-friendly as possible is a safety benefit for operators, whether they’re operating one or 80 helicopters.”
Anyone who owns or is associated with the support of a Sikorsky aircraft can access basic Sikorsky360 material for free. That applies to customers of service centers, Sikorsky-authorized service centers and even third-party maintainers contracted to service Sikorsky helicopters or approved for maintenance by a regulatory authority. “As long as you can correlate your activity with a tail number, that’s good for us,” he said. “We want information to be as broadly disseminated as possible and we’re not going to charge for it.”