Just like 2 sides of a coin, MRO also has two sides- the civil and the defence side. The second day of the 3rd Aerospace & Defence MRO South Asia Summit focussed on the opportunities in the Defence MRO sector, the amalgamation of civil & defence sectors, job options of the defence veterans and many more core issues facing the defence MRO sector.
The Defence MRO South Asia summit was inaugurated by Air Vice Marshal S.Ramakrishnan, VSM, Assistant Chief of Air Staff (Maintenance& Plans) Hon'ble Air Marshal J N Burma, PVSM AVSM VSM (retd), Indian Air Force, Vice Admiral Ramakant Pattnaik, PVSM, AVSM, YSM (RETD), Indian Navy, Rear Admiral V Mohan Doss, Assistant Chief of Naval Staff (AIR MATERIAL), INDIAN NAVY and Mr R.K Patra (Editor-in-Chief, STAT Media Group)
The inauguration was followed by the keynote speech on Defence MRO by Air Vice Marshal S.Ramakrishnan, VSM, Assistant Chief of Air Staff (Maintenance& Plans). Coming straight to the point Air Vice Marshal S. Ramakrishnan said, "Aerospace safety is always of prime importance while we at the Indian Air Force undertake any mission or task be it operational or maintenance. Aerospace and Maintenance safety go hand-in-hand," He then went on to explain the growth of Indian Air Force over the years in terms of technology and innovations. He further explained the depot level maintenance facilities of the Indian Air Force for the fighter, transport aircrafts, helicopters etc. in the base repair depots or BRD's. He further went on stress the importance of vast skilled labour that retires from the IAF. They are highly qualified and trained aircraft technicians who can easily satisfy the want of skilled labour in the civil MRO sector.
Hon'ble Air Marshal J N Burma, PVSM AVSM VSM (retd), Indian Air Force then shared some of his experiences spanning over 40 years in the Indian Air Force. He gave a very interesting example from over a decade ago, 3rd June 1990, when a cheetah 114Hu flown by flight lieutenant Rao and flight officer Nair had an engine malfunction while landing at Amar helipad situated at a height of 19,500 ft, when Siachen was a live battle zone, then in midst of intense exchange of artillery fire the aircraft landed itself on a matchbox size helipad. The troops started shelling Amar helipad. The crew could not stay overnight as they were not acclimatised. Then, began the mind-blogging planning of how to change the engine at that altitude. It was never ever done in the history of aviation. The Cheetah engine weighs 182 kilos and need a potable crane to lift it. At the best of times, at a helicopter base it requires the expertise and workmanship of a very high order, apart from many checks and double checks by the supervisor. Also the cheetah can carry a load of 25 to 75 kgs to Amar because of extremely low density. The Amar base was manned by Army troops, they manually removed the helicopter out of the small helipad to make place for the incoming rescue helicopter. How the team did that without any equipment is a mystery. They made a snow wall ahead of the post so that they could shield it from the direct observations of the Pakistani posts just 2 kilometres away. He went on to describe how the cheetah was dismantled and removed the next day under extreme harsh conditions and without any radio equipment. In the course of his 45 minutes speech Air Marshal Burma gave many such live examples from the IAF which made brought the audience at the edge of their seats.
In the next speech, Rear Admiral V. Mohan Doss, the Assistant Chief of Naval Staff, Air Materials from the Indian Navy spoke on MRO opportunities and challenges in the Defence sector. He spoke of Artificial Intelligence and mission learning, Industrial revolution 4.0. BY quoting the finance minister's budget speech he stressed the important of India's growth in coming years in aviation sector by stating various facts and figures. He also made a mention of the migration of MRO facilities from Defence to Civil sector, esp. from the Indian Navy. He also spoke about indigenisation and the next 5 year plan for MRO. Going ahead he explained the challenges like airport royalty, GST and customs duties. He also urged the OEMs to come and set up facilities in India.
In the presentation on Hangar Doors, an essential fragment for development of MRO ecosystem Tejas Shah, the Business Development Officer in the Hangar Door Division of Gandhi Automation explained the importance of controlled environment during maintenance of an aircraft which the Hangar doors provide. He explained the importance of Hangar doors, types of Hangar doors, challenges faced, Airlines expectations and much more
The next presentation Ashwani Acharya, the CEO of CAE Simulation Training Pvt Ltd. threw light on what needs to be done differently in the market to grow more. He shared his experience of over 25 years in the airline industry, the growth of aviation opportunities in India and the upcoming opportunities in India. With a little synergy between all the stakeholders from the OEMs, MROs, regulators etc things will slowly start changing. We need to get investments from abroad in India and a long term vision to see the changes finally happening in India.
The topic of the 1st Panel on Day 2 was the brainchild Mr. Ravi Menon, director at Air Works. The topic came from his passion for the MRO industry, his vast experience of over 25 years in aerospace MRO and his MRO vision for the country. The topic MRO - India Imperative was pondered upon by a team of expert panellists like Ashwani Acharya, CEO, CAE Simulation Training Pvt Ltd, Arun Kashyap, Executive Vice President, Spicejet, Sanjeev Bedi, VP, Bird Group, Girish Deshmukh, CMO, GMR Aero Technic Ltd. (GAT), M.P Sajumon - Techno- Commercial Manager, Air Asia, Mantha Venkataramana - Chief Executive Officer, Expleo Technologies India Pvt. Ltd and Vinod Kumar Shukla, Deputy General Manager, Engineering Training, GoAir. The panel spoke about the major challenge facing the global MRO industry, the problem of training and shortage of skilled labour.
Focusing on the root cause of the problem of skilled labour Ravi Menon said, "The basic problem in a country like India is, our parents take an upper hand while making career decisions for us. So a basic psychometric test or an aptitude test is a must while entering into any professional field." Tossing the question over to Mr Shukla, he responded by saying," We need to consider 3 aspects - People, process and technology & out of this the most important aspect is people. Many of today's workforce have landed in aviation not by choice but by chance," He went on to explain various ways in which the process of selection can be streamlined and how veteran skilled force from the defence can be easily integrated in the civil MRO sector mutually benefiting both the sectors.
Answering a question on innovations in MRO industry Mantha Venkatramana, CEO of Expleo technologies said," Today we have an engine health monitoring system, a condition-based maintenance, an IoT based framework which works on various parameters to predict the behaviour of various components like fuel pump, combustion module, oil systems etc. So by this method there is no need to knock off the engine off-wing to work. These are very accurate prediction mechanisms and India needs to imbibe these systems soon.
While giving his take from an airline perspective, Arun Kashyap, Executive Vice President, Spicejet said," We are comparing with global entities today be it any field like landing, skill development, inspection of aircraft etc the technology is taking an edge. We need to be innovative to be ahead of the game. We need to be capable, competitive and consistent in our delivery. MRO's should be a one-stop-solution with a right tie-up so it becomes easier for the Airlines as well as the MROs to bring about C-checks."
The next panel discussed about the accelerating the reduction of the aviation industry's carbon footprints, development of fuel-efficient aircraft/engines, electric /hybrid aircraft, carbon neutral growth, biofuels & the hazards of harsh environment on aircraft/engines. The Aviation & Environment session was moderated by Rahul Shah along with key panellists like Luc morvan- Chief Representative, MTU Maintenance Lease Services, Arun Srinivasan- Associate Director, Engine Health Management, Pratt & Whitney, Christopher Rodrigues- Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Asia at SMBC Aero Engine Lease, Ashwani Sharma - Aviation Consultant, Edge Varsity Learning System, Michael Devakishen, Sales Director, Fokker Services.
On his take on electric aircraft Arun srinivasan said," Pratt & Whitney is coming up with commercially viable electric hybrid vehicle. With that you can take off, get the thrust, the cruising power can come from an electric motor or there could be a generator onboard and the engines can just generate electricity. These modifications will happen first in commercial aviation before we go all electric."
Agreeing with Arun, Luc Morvan of MTU maintenance added," We strongly believe that the gas turbine will be anyway in use till 2050 as an improvement of the current turbo fan engines or either as a generator for electric powered aircraft."
Answering a question raised on Biofuel Christopher Rodrigues- Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Asia at SMBC Aero Engine Lease said," KLM was the first to test the airlines using biofuels about a decade ago & they powered this entire revolution. About 50 airlines are currently following that trend. If we look at the entire ecosystem of biofuel it is barely produced by 0.1 or 0.2 per cent. Only 5 airports in the world offer Biofuel all the time. So airlines are advocating biofuels and engine manufacturing companies are preparing engines that will be integrating this technology. In future we can see Biofuels making a strong impact."
Erik Goedhart the senior VP, Global Head of Aerospace and Industrials at Kuehne-Nagel gave a keynote speech on Aerospace Logistics via video conference. He started off the presentation by saying, "India is a developing aerospace hub and we would like to be a part of it." He spoke about certified aerospace logistics. He spoke at length about technical certifications like IACO,EASA, FAA and all kinds of regional and local regulators explaining the various process, documentation and much more. He stressed on the fact that the word logistics is missing from most of the regulator manuals like e.g ground handling manuals. Then he went on to ask the most basic question of logistics regulation and certification. Then he explained the means to bridge the huge gap in logistics certification process, the challenges and what needs to be done.
In the next presentation on Managing Component MRO & contract by k. Adikesavan the Head of Materials and Planning at Blue Dart Aviation focussed on the component MRO global and Indian figures, the things we should look for during an MRO-tie-up during technical and financial aspect. He asked a simple question - What are the things you need to look out for while tying up with a MRO? What are your business needs, what is your detailed scope? He then gave simple examples to answer the above questions.
The last panel of the day discussed Aerospace Logistics moderated by Moderator - CS Tomar, Head, Sales & Marketing, India, Middle-East Willis Lease Finance Corporation while the panellists were Shailendra Seth, Director, India, Chapman Freeborn Air chartering Pvt Ltd (India), K. Adikesavan- Head of Materials and Planning, Blue Dart Aviation, Keku Gazder- Chief Executive Officer - AAI Cargo Logistics & Allied Services Majeed Walela, Vice President, Engineering, Vistara and Shrinivas Chigurala the Accounts Director at Satair.
Majeed Walela took the first question, explaining the airlines perspective he said," We cannot predict 100 per cent AOGs. Although it's costly we have started predictive maintenance technics to avoid AOGs, but it comes at a very high cost. Hence we have our own methods like reliability analysis, hard-time programmes, continuous monitoring, doing our own data analytics and procurement of spares and keeping them as buffer stocks. These are some broad guidelines to avoid AOG's."
Supplying of parts to the airlines is one of the biggest challenges. While answering this Keku Gazder, CEO of AAICLAS explained," AOG is not a commodity. There is a definite plan to make a partsbank in India just like the one in Dubai. We spend a phenomenal amount of AOGs, the spares the taxes etc. Taxes are one of the biggest challenges, but with the progressing government discussions, solutions will be out sooner than expected. He further added that," our company is in talks with a few major companies to set up parts supply to airlines but the big question remains is when and where?
The panel also discussed some crucial situations when there are delays or postponement of flights due to non-availability of spares or if the spares fail to reach on time and how Digitisation has already started to completely transform the Aerospace logistics sector.