JULY 2022AEROSPACEDEFENSEREVIEW.COM8In My OpinionBy William A.J. Mercier, Director Maintenance Planning & Programs, JetBlue [NASDAQ:JBLU]WHAT ARE WE WANTING TO SOLVE WITH PREDICTIVE MAINTENANCE?Over the past decade, aviation operators and type certificate holders have developed an insatiable appetite for predictive maintenance solutions. From high dollar software platforms, long term consultancies and OEM contracts, there are some robust paths forward to obtaining predictive maintenance. Many firms will be pining over the next decade to reach this goal, I would candidly ask myself (or my firm) two questions before I head down this path. 1.) What is the actual problem you are trying to solve? 2.) What is the expected outcome in solving this problem?These questions will offer a wide range of answers. Maybe you want fewer delays and cancels, increased reliability of the platform, more predictable production throughput, or reduced maintenance costs. Predictive maintenance is an approach to advancing all of these complex problems, but it's incorrect to describe it as an approach to solving these complexities. The distinction is important--and necessary to understand.Take a look at common threads in many predictive maintenance practitioners' box of tools. You don't see many Pareto analyses or MSG-3 evaluations or failure modes/effects analyses. To be fair in my argument, one could ask if these are necessary. What you will find are platforms that comb through an intense amount of data to find answers more from the elimination of complexity, rather than identifying the actual maintenance or reliability issue (or root, cause if you will).I am far from saying that predictive maintenance is a white whale we will never catch. On the contrary, it can be achieved at many levels and it can add great value to any organization. With most operators and many other aviation firms neglecting or outsourcing their data management, a decrease in understanding of their current maintenance William A.J. Mercier
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