Services LEAP 1B Copyright Lufthansa Technik scaled
PR: Lufthansa Technik, a leading provider of aircraft maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) services, is teaming up with Microsoft to drive forward the use of artificial intelligence (AI). Designed to optimize entire maintenance processes, the approach will significantly improve efficiency or even lead to completely new offers.
“We are excited about our collaboration with Microsoft,” said Dr. William Willms, Chief Financial Officer of Lufthansa Technik and responsible for the IT department of the company. “This partnership will allow us to harness the power of AI to solve highly complex challenges, improve our operations, and deliver exceptional value to our customers.” The initiative includes over 50 context-sensitive AI use cases based on Microsoft Azure AI Services and the Microsoft Azure cloud.
One of the most impactful use cases is the optimization of layover planning, which promises to significantly save costs by reducing ground time by five to ten percent. Florian Deter, Managing Director at Microsoft Germany, said, “AI is the pivotal technology of our time. It not only enables incredible breakthroughs that could hardly have been imagined before. In its development, security and data protection have the highest priority for us and for Lufthansa Technik.”
By utilizing large language models (LLMs) provided via Azure AI Services and a memory-enabled cognitive architecture, Lufthansa Technik aims to distill knowledge from vast amounts of data, including unstructured data such as work instructions. Much of the information is also hidden in sources such as code, folder structures, images, or charts. To answer complex questions effectively, this knowledge must be made accessible and linked to other data. It will be used to solve tasks autonomously, optimizing procedures and disruptively transforming the industry. The collaboration with Microsoft is part of “Digitize the Core”, a comprehensive initiative by Lufthansa Technik to drive forward the digitization of the company’s core operational processes.
This looks like a great use of AI. Every aircraft brought in for AI will have a slightly different service requirement. Pouring through data on the model will provide a high degree of confidence in the effort required.
What is not mentioned, though, is where aircraft are headed – increasingly, aircraft generate tons of data from their sensors. Big Data is not new to aircraft – GE jet engines collect information at 5,000 data points per second; a 787 generates an average of 500GB of system data a flight. Predictive maintenance is where this is headed.
What happens when an MRO shop like Lufthansa Technik gets a data feed from an aircraft it services? The ability to create a digital twin is also not novel. But imagine this flow of data, where an aircraft’s health is fed into an MRO shop. The MRO, using AI, can predict failure and advise the operator on which actions to take and when.
Lufthansa Technik will likely be one of the first MRO shops to implement this. When it does, its customers might be paying more for MRO but will have a more reliable schedule. If an airline had to choose between the cost of unplanned breakdowns and delays or higher MRO costs, we’d bet on the latter. This move into AI will likely be copied in short order by other big MRO shops.
Views: 124
