ALTEN-India is proficient in providing Repair Solutions for one of the leading global aero-engine manufacturer, leveraging its Vendor/MRO network worldwide to maintain their growing Engine fleet demand for Civil Aviation. We provided expertise in Repair Design, Inspection planning, First Article Inspection Report (FAIR) support, Service Cost reduction, etc. to ensure the aero engine components are refurbished on-time, as Replacing with “New” is no longer the fastest or smartest path due to supply chain fragility and OEM lead times. The surge in aeroengine demand driven by a projected global fleet expansion is creating a massive backlog in MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul) facilities. Our services have enabled to deliver scalable, maintainable, and high-performance engine maintenance and overhaul support across multiple platforms and variants to our customer to meet the growing Engine demand and Airworthiness Regulations of the Commercial Airlines.

Challenge:

Repair Vendors/Maintenance Repair and Overhaul(MRO) Facilities across the globe responsible for the  large fleet of Engines have expressed concerns on significant time lost in the Inspection requirements that intern contributes towards an increase in the Turn Round Time(TRT) for their Engine Production, therefore making it more challenging to achieve the monthly and Yearly targets and the on-time Engine availability to prevent Aircraft on Ground (AOG) situation. The aviation industry is currently facing a “structural mismatch” where engine demand is significantly outstripping availability. This has elevated Aircraft on Ground (AOG) events from a reactive maintenance issue to a critical strategic priority for airlines and vendors alike.

Complex measurement techniques, Coordinate Measuring Machines (CMMs), Redundant dimensions Measurement, etc. recommended at the Inspection planning stage is the biggest challenge for the Repair Shops. CMM is a metrology device used in manufacturing/MRO to measure the precise 3D physical geometry of objects, ensuring they meet Manufacturing /Repair Design specifications. While CMMs are essential for ensuring the extreme precision required in aviation, they present significant challenges to modern engine repair facilities  due to their technical complexity, environmental needs, and impact on production speed. Core Challenges of the CMMs are:

• Skilled Resource Shortage: Operating a CMM requires specialized training in temperature control, vibration correction, and data processing. A lack of experts who can program complex measurement routines often creates severe bottlenecks.
• Time Constraints: Traditional CMM measurements are typically performed in isolated labs away from the production line to ensure accuracy. Moving parts back and forth and the slow speed of contact probes significantly delay decision-making.
• Data Processing Complexity: Modern aeroengine parts generate massive amounts of measurement data. Traditional analysis methods often struggle with “sparse point data” or uncertain defects, requiring manual intervention by highly skilled engineers to interpret deviations.

Solutions: 

• Identification of non-value-added features/measurements, Redundant dimensions, Opportunities to provide alternate methods/equipment for the complex measurement methods/equipment in existing repair solution.
• Recommendation of an improved Repair Solution with non-value-added features removed completely or alternately achieved through a different verification/validation method.
• Innovative and user-friendly Control plans : Recommendation of alternate ways of achieving the measurement intent through robust control plans that significantly reduces the inspection burden. In inspection planning, control plans are used to provide a structured roadmap that links Repair process steps to specific quality control activities. They act as the “backbone” of quality assurance, ensuring that products consistently meet customer and regulatory requirements
• To break the bottleneck caused by traditional touch-probe CMMs, the repair solution and inspection planning must recommend MRO facilities to use Non-Contact (Non-Touch) Metrology. These methods capture millions of data points in seconds, eliminating the “point-to-point” slowness of traditional contact measurement, also avoiding the part movement to the climate-controlled lab, as the measurement can be performed at the technician’s bench or on the part at workstation. This eliminates the non-value-added time spent on part transportation, temperature stabilization (soaking), and queuing.
• Vendor specific inspection planning that is tailored to meet the vendors existing inspection capability. Vendor-specific inspection planning is a critical pillar for optimizing aeroengine MRO (Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul). By tailoring inspection strategies to match a vendor’s specific technical capabilities—such as their proficiency with non-touch measurement tools—you can eliminate redundant processes and directly address the “CMM bottleneck“.

Benefits Delivered:

• Streamlining Inspection : Significant Time Saved due to elimination of the non-value-added inspection 
• Scalability Across Engine Families: Potential to read across the optimized repair solution to other similar Engine marks/models
• Flexibility of measuring methods and controls plans for vendors to choose vendor specific methods
• Increase in Engine availability that can prevent the  Aircraft on Ground (AOG) situation.
• Reduced Shop Visit Rates (SVR): Optimized repairs and proactive maintenance
• Maximized Fleet Uptime & Revenue for the MRO and OEMs
• Refurbishment reduces waste, supporting the industry’s commitment to sustainable operations.