Imagine how easy your life would be if someone were to predict your future. We could actually come to know the mistakes that we were bound to commit and rectify them beforehand. We would then plan our life securely and minimize the potential threats and risks. In short, life would be easy and uncomplicated. To explain in a layman's language, that's exactly what Aerogility does for an aircraft. Experts in predictive maintenance software, Aerogility offers powerful sets of predictive maintenance planning tools to help you to anticipate the future and plan effective strategies to deal with it.
Steve Osborn, Architect, Aerogility talks about his idea behind this project, the future of Aerogility and the challenges he faced ... Swati Ketkar finds more...
Q - 'Predictive Maintenance Software' can you tell us your inspiration or idea behind this? How did you come up with an idea to create this tool?
A - The Aerogility predictive maintenance tool is built on a multi-agent technology that the company has developed. The agent approach has proven to successfully model complex systems and operations. Each of the key areas' aircraft, maintenance centres and the decision makers, such as fleet controllers and inventory managers' are all represented by agents that can be configured to operate according to particular rules and methods that the user wants 'play out' over a specified time period.
The Aerogility model then simulates the interactive operation of all these agents over a future timeline running through several years in a few seconds.
This approach can be used in many domains. We identified the aviation sector as a key area in which this technology can be deployed effectively, where high value assets operate under very constrained conditions and small changes can present big savings.
Q - What were the challenges you faced while developing this project? Can you tell us the toughest challenge so far?
A - One of the biggest challenges we faced while developing Aerogility was scalability. Dealing with the large numbers of aircraft, engines and subcomponents, which work over a long period of time, is a complicated process. We have worked hard to ensure Aerogility is a completely scalable solution, able to run on the cloud or be deployed in-house or on a laptop.
Unlike alternative planning applications, Aerogility has the capability to combine component and heavy-base maintenance in a single software solution. The software can generate a large number of planning and what-if analysis scenarios quickly and easily within a day.
In developing Aerogility, we were also faced with the challenge of replicating the required level of complexity of the aircraft operation and sustainment process in an agent model. The aim of Aerogility is to provide customers with a sufficiently accurate representation of their businesses to ensure their maintenance projection is valid, and thanks to the optimization capabilities in the Aerogility software, this is now possible.
Lastly, the incorporation of maintenance scheduling within the agent simulation model proved complex. When building simulations, the software needs to take into account all the different rules, constraints and preferences that apply, while trying to maximise the maintenance yield, all of which is achieved through the hard work of our software development team.
Q - Recently easyJet expanded its ties with Aerogility's MRO forecasting solutions to engine shop visits and landing gear overhaul. Can you explain in brief the working of these solutions?
A - Following the successful deployment of Aerogility in December 2017, easyJet asked us at the end of last year to add two significant capabilities to its MRO forecasting solution: engine shop visits and landing gear overhauls. This means we are now able to give easyJet a platform to perform extensive whole aircraft MRO forecasting; a key benefit which is proving useful to both the maintenance planning and power plant departments.
easyJet can simulate flying its fleet over future years as well as the operation of its maintenance and engineering organization, predicting when maintenance events should occur. Aerogility automatically generates optimized schedules which easyJet can analyze and edit to maximize the number of aircraft flying and the number of seats available for customers. This allows the airline's planning team to respond quickly by presenting alternative strategies and potential solutions to the day-to-day challenges faced by the fleet.
Q - What about the ease-of-use and flexibility of Aerogility's predictive maintenance software?
Productivity and flexibility are immediate benefits of using Aerogility. A team can set up and run a simulation in a few mouse clicks, and automatically generate multiple versions of schedules or detailed analytics, rather than weeks of laborious work creating spreadsheets or using more traditional tools. This means that the team can quickly develop sophisticated maintenance & engineering strategies and plans, comparing Key Performance Indicators and other success criteria.
There are many examples of challenges that Aerogility has resolved successfully, for example balancing planning yield with nose-to-tail scheduling, optimizing maintenance programs with entry-into-service and end-of-lease conditions, or the optimal time to transition from one maintenance strategy to another for an ageing fleet.
Q - Today, with the rapidly evolving technology in artificial intelligence, robotics and smart machines while the results keep getting better on one hand, is it posing a threat to manual jobs? The current sentiment is that the technology and innovations might replace human jobs altogether? Your views
A - Having created a product that is founded in Artificial Intelligence (AI) with multi-agent systems, we have seen first-hand how important this type of technology is in our increasingly digitalized world. The ability to use technology to predict and simulate future scenarios in maintenance planning is revolutionising the industry. This is not to say that AI, robotics and smart machines will threaten manual jobs. We created Aerogility to assist MRO teams by making maintenance planning easier and more accurate - it will not replace jobs, only make them less arduous.
Q - In the recent partnership, Rolls Royce Defense selected Aerogility's decision support product for service analytics. Can you explain how does this product work?
A -With Rolls-Royce Defence we implemented a multi-agent model, designed by Rolls-Royce as a digital-twin of the service support enterprise, and embodying business rules and engineering experience acquired over decades of operation. In the model, the agent parameters for platform operations, maintenance support networks and life-cycle cost are fully configurable to represent a myriad of fleet scenarios according to the use case.
The expertise of Rolls-Royce analysts plus the Aerogility multi-agent model produces a realistic and holistic view of the overall service provision. Business teams can iterate through customer support scenarios quickly and easily by varying the parameters in the model, and thus optimising both forecasting accuracy and service delivery.
Q - In today's robust competition what are your predictions about the future of Aerogility?
A - We believe it is of critical importance to further enhance our rich optimization capabilities and leverage recent developments in big data analytics, machine-learning and smart solutions as this is where the industry is heading in the future. Our multi-agent technology has its roots in AI and autonomous systems, and we are confident that our architecture is an effective conduit for making use of these new technologies.
We have worked hard to develop our civil aviation capability, building on the expertise and success we have achieved in military aviation and are very pleased with the volume of enquiries that we are now receiving. Airline operators are extremely receptive to Aerogility - so we hope to be working with more civil aviation companies in the near future.