Companies across many different industries have embarked on their own individual digitalisation journey. Some are at the very beginning, while others have made great strides (and the journey arguably never really ends). In the maintenance, repair and overhaul industry, digitalisation takes many different forms, and companies are still working out where real efficiency gains can be made. Do the technologies live up to their hype? At what point would there be a return on investment? Is there any reason to drastically change systems that have been working well for years?

Whatever the answers to these questions, innovation is undoubtedly pushing the industry into the future. As one of the biggest MRO companies in the world, Lufthansa Technik is well placed to invest, investigate and innovate. Its AVIATAR platform combines a rich variety of digital products and services, while flydocs offers digital records and asset solutions.

Most recently, the company added the successful AMOS platform from Swiss AviationSoftware (which is now a 100 per cent Lufthansa Technik subsidiary) to the mix to create what it is calling a Digital Tech Ops ecosystem. The company followed this up by fully integrating Lufthansa Industry Solutions (LHIND), a service company for IT consulting and systems integration.

“By joining forces we are sending a clear signal that we are dedicated to driving digitalisation along the entire tech ops value stream for the benefit of and together with our customers,” said Lufthansa Technik’s CFO Dr William Willms. “With LHIND’s highly specialised and dedicated colleagues at our side, we are getting ever closer to our strategic goal of leading the digital transformation of the MRO industry. MRO IT services and digitalisation will be a focus growth field for Lufthansa Technik in the coming years, with further complementary add-ons to follow.”

It will be fascinating to see how this digital powerhouse develops, but there is also plenty of room for smaller companies to innovate. One example is UK-based Intoware, whose ‘WorkfloPlus’ digital workflow solution aims to drive productivity, connectivity and simplicity despite not even being originally targeted at the MRO industry. As we find out in a Q&A in this issue, among its benefits it can eliminate the need for engineers and technicians to do admin, which is surely an appealing prospect.

There will be plenty of innovations like this to look out for in 2023 and beyond, and MRO Management will continue to keep track of them.

I hope you enjoy reading the issue.