Story ID: 577
Traxxall Growing Into Maintenance-tracking Market
By: Matt Thurber
Caption: Traxxall’s maintenance-tracking service now serves more than 300 aircraft.
Word Count: 512

Montreal-based Traxxall Technologies launched its business aircraft maintenance-tracking service just two years ago and has grown from having nine aircraft enrolled early last year to more than 300 aircraft now. “We continue to have lots of interest,” said Traxxall president Mark Steinbeck, “and we’re growing every month. By the end of the year, based on our projections, we should be approaching 500 aircraft.”

Here at EBACE, Traxxall (Booth S093) is demonstrating its unique holding area feature, which is tailored for operators in EASA countries under continuing airworthiness management organization (CAMO) programs. In the U.S., new airworthiness directives, service bulletins and inspection program changes get pushed immediately into the maintenance program, but EASA operators need these items to be reviewed and accepted by their CAMO before adding them to the “maintenance due” list. “This solves a major frustration,” Steinbeck said, “and it’s been live since Day One.”

Traxxall operates on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform. “We’re the only cloud-based [maintenance-tracking system],” Steinbeck said, “which makes it much more secure and allows us to keep overhead costs down. We can pass the savings on to customers, and we tend to be 20- to 30 percent cheaper than our competition.”

Customers can access Traxxall online from any computing device and customize dashboards and reports to suit their operation. Commercial operators can easily allow regulators to access applicable sections of their Traxxall accounts to verify regulatory compliance. “It’s so intuitive,” he said, “like every other system I use in everyday life.”

For companies that run operations software, Traxxall can integrate with a variety of products such as RocketRoute, Rockwell Collins’s Flight Operations System (FOS) and Avianis. Others such as Seagil Software’s BART and BoldIQ’s Astro are being added. “A lot of times people try to buy one software program to solve all their needs,” Steinbeck explained, “but they end up with one that does 30 percent of the job and the rest is a compromise.” Buyers have shifted to purchasing best-of-breed programs that can work together, he added. For example, FOS users can set up their systems so that flight times are automatically updated, and this data feeds into Traxxall to keep maintenance schedules up to date. “Flight operations can see when maintenance items are due,” he said. “This opens up communication with the flight department.”

Traxxall users can also generate logbook entries and for digital signatures. The company’s analysts are all A&P mechanics, and they are directly involved in the enrollment process when new aircraft are added to the Traxxall system. “They have more than 350 years of aviation experience,” Steinbeck said.

Traxxall is now developing an inventory control module, which should be released on August 1. Five customers have been beta testing the module, which will help those operators who store parts to keep track of their inventory’s value and also the expiration dates on life-limited parts. “It even goes into purchasing and shipping,” he said, so it’s an ordering module as well.”