AAR Rolls Out Paperless MRO Operations

No “paper escapes”; people following the same processes across facilities; user-focused design that technicians actually enjoy using; enhancing customer communications; saving 538 trees annually and making more money—these are some of the reasons AAR is digitizing MRO operations and adding that functionality to Concourse, the platform the company built for operations and customer engagement.

Today airlines can send AAR 50,000-page paperwork packages for one aircraft C check. The company needs to ingest, print and manage all that. There is a fair amount of institutional knowledge embedded in the process, which does not translate to AAR’s goal of having all its MRO facilities act as one when it comes to processes and procedures.

“Our paper-based operation works, but it’s inherently inefficient,” says Derek Janu-Chossek, a senior product manager.

Because of that, AAR is rolling out a digital MRO process—from the moment an airline delivers the work package to the moment AAR returns the aircraft. Intake of a work package now takes a couple of hours, compared with the days it took with the paper process, Janu-Chossek says.

AAR worked with United Airlines on the pilot program in Rockford, Illinois, through a dual process that showed the digital requirements matched the paper version. United still sent work packages as PDFs, but through a program AAR built using Microsoft Azure and a partnership with ChatGPT, “we digitally take it and split it apart through optical character recognition,” Janu-Chossek says. A planner also will validate the output before MRO work begins. Because the program leverages neural networks, the more data that goes through the system, the better it will get.

AAR has worked with Microsoft for several years, but a couple of years ago it signed a “high-level commercial agreement” to develop products jointly using Microsoft’s technologies, AAR Chief Digital and Technology Officer Rahul Ghai says. This interests the IT giant because “we’re putting the technology through hoops it hasn’t been [through], especially in the aviation industry,” he adds.

AAR started its first paperless line in April at its facility in Rockford and then expanded to two. Its Miami facility is in the midst of digitizing an airframe D check line, says Ryan Campbell, vice president of strategy, planning and innovation. Once that line goes fully digital, which should be very soon, “Miami is going to be off to the races,” he adds.

AAR also is starting to roll out a digital line in Oklahoma City. That one is a lighter, four-day check.

“There’s a change management component to all of this,” Campbell says. “A four-day check allows everybody to just dip their toe into the water, understand how things are changing and be ready for a more robust check.”

After that, AAR’s Canadian facilities in Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, and Windsor, Ontario, should see their first digital MRO lines in December 2024 or January 2025.

Rockford’s first line went through the dual process for four months because both AAR’s technical staff and United Airlines’ staff needed to acclimate to the new system. However, with each new line added, the process shortens.

The Miami facility has tested various technologies, including aircraft drone inspections, so the site “has really been fast on the uptake of digital MRO,” Campbell says. “The training has been pretty seamless, and the user adoption and feedback have been positive.”

In the bigger picture, AAR strives to become “significantly more digitally enabled,” he says. For instance, the company seeks to layer other digital solutions, such as augmented reality for guided aircraft repairs, on top of its digitized MRO operation.

Digitalizing MRO does not only make turnaround times faster; AAR’s staff likes it because it is easy to use and increases productivity. “A lot of what we’re doing is just giving them the toolset to do everything more effectively and more intuitively and making the job ultimately that much more enriching for everybody,” Campbell says.

AAR is deploying 1,500 tablets for technicians to use at its six facilities.