Headaches with records?
 

Hello there

Before I thought about this I had a look at some posts from the database so mods please let me know if I'm stepping over the line here...

We have developed a system to manage aircraft records - thats everything from delivery docs from the manufactuer to the maintenance history and tech logs. Our system is pretty nifty and already we have scanned 50 entire aircraft back to birth for customers all over the world.

What we have allows you to type in a component serial number and search for any item containing that number - so in seconds you could get the Form One for example and print it or email it.

I'm wondering how you guys in the tech records areas manage this at the moment? Do you scan already and is it in PDF format or microfilm?

Are you aware of any similar systems that do this at all?

Cheers

The RAF use a network called the Logistic Information Technology System, otherwise known as LITS (or Lost In Time and Space) for ac engineering and asset management. It's not quite up to scanning documents but (aircrew: commence uncontrollable laughter) it is quite good at locating items by component number and calculating rolled-up remaining life on significant components or assemblies, including entire ac. It's based on a Sth African Defence Force system called OSIS and coded by a bunch of geekoids at IBM UK in Stevenage.

Sounds like you might have one over us there. How long did it take to do 50 ac?

Hi Fox

We can scan, index and deliver a searchable DVD just about onsite. A 2 person team can get through between 6000-8000 records per day. Thats about a years worth of typical narrowbody records. Its a bit quicker if its done at our office.

As an example a 5 year old A320/B737 would take us 5 days.

I'll PM you more info...

Cheers

Oh please! Talk to BA. Their new system is just fab!:mad:

It's called EWS (Engineering Without Spares or Enormous Waste System) It's very cheap, only about £3M spent on it so far in the last 5 years and it still doesn't work!

So if you think you can come on here and tell us all that you have a system that actually works........ :\

Nurse!

I'm going to my happy place now....wibble!:{ :\ :ok:

There are several such systems around and wonder why Yours is diffrent? generally speaking They are scanned into PDF format PM Me details of Your system

I'm not saying that ours actually works but you can sleep easy at night that you've only spent £3m on it.

Sorry, I meant to say £300,000,000.

:eek:

£300,000,000!
 

And here's me worried about wasting taxpayers money. I guess £300m on a duff EAM system goes some way to explaining BA's pension deficit or have I opened up a can of worms? Perhaps not the right forum... :ugh:

Where did you get £300m from Turin? Last rumour I heard was that it was approaching £100m and that was only a few months ago.
Still appalling though :sad:

£300,000,000
 

£70,000,000 initial budget
had to go back to the board and ask for another £150,000,000 to finish the job
plus about £20,000,000 extra over the last 5 years

and it still take 20 A4 pages of paper 20 minutes hunting for the part on the system to get the parts

"but will save the company millions over the long term:hmm: "

Scanning the records is great, but has any body checked that whats within them is correct. We have bought aircraft from reputable companies, did a physical check of rotable components s/n and found something else fitted. Its human nature, we find mistakes we made too, so I am not going to throw stones in the glasshouse. The day you trust everything the computer tells you, is the day you are looking for trouble. Sampling checks are a good way to go.
We use IAS system and works great for us (stores is linked to aircraft status, linked to accounts, linked to defects etc) now if it could only make a decent coffee, I'd be happy.:)

Get the ODBC drivers, still won't make a cup of coffee but will give you time to drink it. Maintenance, stores, work orders, reliability, logs, ops, accounts & undocumented features :=
TT

would you believe I just got the quote to buy ODBC, last week. Not that expensive for what it does

They are far less problematic than IQ, but not as quick. A bit daunting for some users to set up, but worth the asking.
Tip #1 When you work out where all the data is, only bring in the data you want. Don't try to bring everything in at once.
TT

We've been looking at many of these systems but none of them do precisely what our customers demand.

The root of the problem is getting the original paper into the system. Every system we've looked at uses more labour than an old fashioned 'Cardex' system, which surely defeats a major part of the objective.

The problem may lie in the specification issued to the system supplier. The spec must be accurate and detailed, then anything is possible (I am in aviation, but friends of mine in the computer industry) The main problems arise due to inaccurate specs, wrong person writing the spec (actually should be all involved and not just the head accountant or chief engineer) and most impoartntly do not change the spec once the programming has started, otherwise you looking for problems. Preferrably purchases an off the shelf programnme. I have been involved in the commissioning of two systems into operators.
Everthing was redone including procedures. Procedures where written around the system bought off the shelf and everybody trained in those procedures. You will never get a system that matches your current procedures, which built up over time based on old systems. I would never go back to cardex (we run a fleet with half the staff of old).
Setting up everything takes times (and accurancy, such as do you use dashes in P/Ns, same format for all ADs on system) but once up and running its a joy to use. And once RFT are common on parts, life will even be easier

Getting existing info into the system

We handle this by scanning the feed from the legacy/currrent system and use a zonal OCR programme to 'find' whats required from each page and feed this into an excel file or whatever for easy upload to your new system.

Zonal OCR (Optical Character Recognition) is when you define what field/s on the page you want pulled from the old data and it will 'look' in these fields for the data. works well when you have a structured system but not so well when the data is spread with no particular pattern.

Ultimately, if you dont spend time on migrating the old data to your new system properly then you will have problems. turning junk into junk as they say...