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In today’s world, many sustainment operations may still struggle in capturing data through a quick and efficient process. Solutions commonly constructed in house to collect and manage data can include Excel spreadsheets, unspecified network folders, and handwritten paper documents. All these methods may solve one problem while creating more issues in the process. Unintegrated, and poorly controlled data capture and management often leads to many obstacles like slow processing times, lengthy disposition turn around, difficult to find or missing information, as well higher costs. Additionally, this limits the ability to perform real-time data analysis that can restrict aircraft availability. This presentation will discuss the integration of digital data capture solutions for structural inspection and maintenance operations using real world examples from the US Air Force.
NLign Software Suite for Data Capture and Fleet Management
In today’s world, many sustainment operations may still struggle in capturing data through a quick and efficient process. Solutions commonly constructed in house to collect and manage data can include Excel spreadsheets, unspecified network folders, and handwritten paper documents. All these methods may solve one problem while creating more issues in the process. Unintegrated, and poorly controlled data capture and management often leads to many obstacles like slow processing times, lengthy disposition turn around, difficult to find or missing information, as well higher costs. Additionally, this limits the ability to perform real-time data analysis that can restrict aircraft availability. This presentation will discuss the integration of digital data capture solutions for structural inspection and maintenance operations using real world examples from the US Air Force.
The NCheck data capture solution is designed to help improve the quality of data collected while also increasing the throughput of a given operation. NCheck also relays all collected data to the NLign application for storage and analysis. This results in a decreased time spent by inspectors and maintainers documenting defects and increases availability of data thus enhancing the communication capabilities within a depot or field environment. It also shortens the length of time required for a disposition turn around. One of the recent developments in the NLign software to aid in the speed of the data collection process is the Task setup. This allows process engineers to better control the flow of parts in a shop or production environment. This new feature also enhances inspectors’ ability to process workpieces in a more efficient manner. During our presentation we will be drawing conclusions based on experiences at various depots and production facilities about the benefits of use for NCheck and the new Task setup features. Benefits include the creation of a digital thread, greater availability of data, and a smoother UI for quicker data entry, and increased communication capabilities for an ever-expanding global force.
Digital engineering practices are quickly being implemented across the entire United States Air Force (USAF) to optimize the life cycle management of aging aircraft. However, utilizing and enforcing digital standards on aircraft designed and built well before the digital revolution, like the A-10, comes with many challenges. To keep the A-10 fleet flying safely, the USAF has committed to thousands of inspections at numerous locations for each aircraft. Capturing this inspection-related data has been historically rooted in a “pen and paper” dominated system resulting in data that, for the most part, is unavailable or unusable to serve ASIP engineering-based activities needed to meet the requirements of MIL-STD-1530D. This “pen and paper” method of capturing data was used by A-10 maintenance groups until it was replaced with a digital approach using NLign, a maintenance-based software, in 2018. Since the implementation of NLign, recording depot inspection data for the A-10 has become almost entirely digital, with data quality close to 100%.
A10 Digital Transformation of Maintenance Data with NLign
Digital engineering practices are quickly being implemented across the entire United States Air Force (USAF) to optimize the life cycle management of aging aircraft. However, utilizing and enforcing digital standards on aircraft designed and built well before the digital revolution, like the A-10, comes with many challenges. To keep the A-10 fleet flying safely, the USAF has committed to thousands of inspections at numerous locations for each aircraft. Capturing this inspection-related data has been historically rooted in a “pen and paper” dominated system resulting in data that, for the most part, is unavailable or unusable to serve ASIP engineering-based activities needed to meet the requirements of MIL-STD-1530D. This “pen and paper” method of capturing data was used by A-10 maintenance groups until it was replaced with a digital approach using NLign, a maintenance-based software, in 2018. Since the implementation of NLign, recording depot inspection data for the A-10 has become almost entirely digital, with data quality close to 100%.
In addition to depot inspection, many other data types are being collected digitally using NLign’s software suite. The result is a library of fleet data that can be used to guide ASIP engineering accurately activities like fleet/aircraft risk and prognostics, validation of damage tolerance analyses, corrosion prevention, analytical condition inspection (ACI) selection, and engineering liaison activities. This presentation will compare A-10’s current use of NLign to manage maintenance records to previous methods and how captured data is being used. Additionally, lessons learned and future goals for using NLign for the A-10 will be presented.