Kiran Soni, managing director – UK & Ireland at RGIS, looks at the important role stocktaking has in helping airlines ensure their fleets remain fully operational and how firms should be taking notes.
In the aerospace industry, precision is everything. From supply chain logistics to aircraft maintenance, the ability to track, manage and control inventory efficiently can make the difference between seamless operations and costly downtime. With high-value components, strict international regulatory requirements and a complex supply chain, firms across the sector face unique challenges in inventory management.
Some European airlines are even demonstrating how smarter stock control can drive significant cost savings and improve operational efficiency – ultimately ensuring more flights are leaving on time and safely.
Maintenance turbulence
The aerospace sector deals with a vast amount of components which can range from essential consumables to expensive, mission-critical parts. Unlike other industries, missing or misplaced components aren’t just an inconvenience, they’re immensely costly. With aircraft maintenance operating on tight schedules, even the slightest delay in sourcing crucial components for vehicle maintenance can disrupt flight schedules and cause issues for passengers.
The sheer scale of the maintenance operation required requires larger airlines to handle thousands of parts across multiple locations. This requires a huge amount of components and data, as most will carry a strict expiration date and unique storage requirements, and will be subject to regulatory compliance checks.
Moreover, ensuring that the right parts are available at the right time and in the right condition is often a logistical challenge that demands advanced inventory solutions to keep on top of this highly complex and delicate sector.
No fly list
Downtime is a nightmare for airlines. Known across the industry as aircraft on ground (AOG), these situations can be extremely costly. In fact, a report from Boeing found that as a result of an AOG, the average cost per cancelled flight can be over £100,000 ($130,600) in lost revenue and operational expenses. But it’s not just about the money, it’s about reputation too. More AOGs mean more disrupted and disgruntled passengers all while reflecting badly on your brand – which could ultimately cost your business more money further down the line.
However, in some cases an AOG situation could be avoided by ensuring the necessary spare parts are readily available. Meanwhile, understocking essential components can force airlines into last-minute purchases at a premium.
On the other hand, inefficient stock control can cause over-purchasing, stock obsolescence and wasted resources. Through real-time data and inventory visibility, airlines risk holding excess stock, tying up valuable capital in parts that might never be used – demonstrating there is a clear balance of inventory management required to ensure maintenance operations have access to the right stock when it’s needed.
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With innovative technology, airlines can improve their stocktaking accuracy.
Twenty, twenty vision
There is, however, a simpler way to ensure critical components are readily available without losing track of the thousands of parts being processed every week.
With optical character recognition (OCR) technology, such as RGIS Vision, airlines can improve their stocktaking accuracy, remove expired components from their stores and provide maintenance staff with highly accurate data to help them do their jobs more efficiently.
This cutting-edge inventory solution goes beyond traditional barcode scanning to speed up stocktaking and parts tracking while eliminating paperwork and manual data entry. Designed in a way that meets the specific needs of the aviation industry, it scans aircraft part numbers, serial numbers and barcodes, enabling maintenance teams and auditors to carry out inventory checks more quickly and accurately than with manual in-house processes.
Using state-of-the-art camera handset technology, RGIS Vision captures part numbers, QR codes, serial numbers and barcodes – even recognising smudged, faded or worn markings commonly found on aircraft components. The cloud-based system generates a detailed data file that integrates seamlessly with maintenance tracking systems, ERP software or spreadsheets, significantly reducing the need for manual corrections and eliminating hours of data entry.
Jetting ahead
RGIS is already working with a number of aviation businesses operating across Europe to help provide a systematic approach to handling the complexities of inventory management.
One in particular, which operates multiple warehouses for parts and consumables, did not have a unified warehouse management system (WMS), which resulted in incomplete and inconsistent data for inventory control. Additionally, some parts labels lacked critical information, making the inventory process challenging.
By leveraging RGIS Vision OCR technology and daily variance checks, RGIS delivered a 98.9% inventory accuracy rate, identifying 2,000 unlisted products and 900 outdated parts requiring action.
Not only this, but RGIS’s ability to generate daily reports and handle complex challenges, such as handwritten code entries, enabled the airline to better manage its open warehouse environment.
The airline company was highly satisfied with RGIS’s performance, reinforcing its value as a trusted inventory solutions partner.
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