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This is the white paper which I wrote for the first issue of the Aircraft IT MRO eJournal in May 2011
Citation preview
28 | WHITE PAPER: CONDUCE | AIRCRAFT IT MRO | APRIL-MAY 2011
What’s up with aviation IT?Paul Saunders, Operations Director of Conduce Consulting
AVIATION IT DEPARTMENTS around
the world have an uncertain future. For
the �rst time ever the IT teams are not the only ones
holding all the cards when it comes to making
strategic business decisions regarding Information
Technology. Also, for the �rst time, there is a chance
that managers and workers outside of IT have as
much knowledge about the strategic use of
technology as those inside IT departments. And, for
the �rst time school leavers, college and university
graduates do not know a world without the internet.
Finally, for the �rst time consumer technology is at
the bleeding edge of the technological world. Could
this be the beginning of the end for the aviation IT
department as we know it today?
Aviation companies around the world are waking
up to the fact that information technology is now
a certain and genuine business enabler. But this
isn’t because they have been told so by the guys
down in IT. Managers, Executives and other users
are seeing the potential advantages with their own
eyes. �ey are surrounded by dazzling technology,
jaw dropping so�ware and remarkable hardware
that was the stu� of dreams and science �ction
only a few years ago. But they are not seeing it at
work: �ey live with it all around them at home.
Apple, Google and Facebook are at the forefront
of this technological revolution, not the IBMs, the
Microso�s, and Oracles of yesteryear.
Neither the iPod, nor the iPhone, nor the iPad
was designed for business. All three products by
one manufacturer, Apple, are genuine revolutionary
devices that have shaped their market sectors since
their introduction. No company in any industry has
matched this feat in such a short space of time. One
revolutionary product is a fantastic achievement: but
three? In one decade? Regardless of what you think
of Apple’s products, they are amongst the most
overtook Microso� as the world’s largest technology
company.
Google has cornered a multi-billion dollar market
which simply didn’t exist when I started work in this
“to organize the world’s information and make it
universally accessible and useful”, has arguably been
achieved through technological means. �e way
in which a search engine works may not be well
a second, but everyone from the age of �ve upwards
knows what Google does and how to use it. Google
is much more than just a search engine: Google
today has an unrivalled portfolio of products and
“Aviation companies around the world are waking up to the fact that information technology is now a certain and genuine business enabler. But this isn’t because they have been told so by the guys down in IT”Paul Saunders, Operations Director of Conduce Consulting
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services which includes the Google Chrome browser; productivity applications
such as Gmail and Google Apps; Social Media platforms YouTube, Picasa and
Orkut; the Android mobile operating system; and much, much more.
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook didn’t invent the concept
of social media and social networking. When Facebook �rst came on to the
rival to MySpace, Friendster, Flickr and other social networking platforms that
cropped up around that time. Facebook succeeded where others have faltered
by doing so many critical things just right. For example the decision to
deliberately keep advertising unobtrusive has led to signi�cantly lower
click through rates (CTRs) than rival advertising platforms, but the
sheer volume of users who have chosen Facebook as their primary
social networking channel as a result of this decision counteracts this
e�ect. A de�nite case of quantity over quality.
What these monolithic 21st Century technology companies have in common
(apart from billionaire founders; a seat at the US President’s table; and some
awesome technology to show o� every couple of months) is that they have each
become what they are today by focusing on innovative products primarily for the
consumer market. In doing so, they have blazed a trail for thousands of consumer
technologists, making so�ware and applications of their own, which, hooking
into the open architecture of third party so�ware and hardware, have driven the
consumer technology industry so far ahead of business to business technology that
it is di!cult to see a way in which this trend is likely to be reversed.
Aerospace Executives, I have found, do not need a business case or a cost
bene�t analysis to understand the value of embracing this new wave of
consumer technology. �ey can picture it themselves without any outside
help. �ose businesses that can adopt the new technologies �rst have a clear,
competitive advantage. But most aviation companies are struggling, not
through lack of will or funds, but due to the fact that their IT departments and
technology vendors with which they have surrounded themselves for the past
required today, tomorrow and in the future.
Aviation IT departments have evolved over time to become risk minimisers
rather than business enablers. In the past couple of months I have been talking
to a number of airlines and MROs about potential solutions to some of their
problems and it has struck me that there are a number of common threads
running throughout aviation IT at the moment. To a greater or lesser degree
everyone is experiencing exactly the same problems.
Computers are great aren’t they? �ey’ve completely revolutionised the way we
do work. It seems strange to think that only a generation or so ago that more
people didn’t have a computer on their desk at work than did so. In a relatively
short space of time the IT industry has sprung up from a few geeks and
bo!ns to a multi-trillion dollar industry. But at the same time computers have
somehow posed a supposed risk to our businesses.
REPRESENT A SERIOUS SECURITY RISK
�is argument, I believe, is utter nonsense and is driven by fear, lack of
understanding and contempt for the unknown. Rather than being technology
champions in the vanguard of the proliferation of computer use, for some
bizarre reason many aviation IT departments have been the ‘nay-sayers’; sti"ing
progress through inexplicable policies and security measures. �eir arguments
o�en seem to be driven by common sense, but it doesn’t take a lot of e�ort to
destroy every lazy explanation.
Let’s take a look at the usual excuses:
employee productivity.
vulnerable to attacks from hackers.
data leaks.
slows a company’s
internet connection.
On the surface these seem to be reasonable assertions. In most companies these
fears usually manifest themselves into a series of ill-conceived security protocols
APRIL-MAY 2011 | AIRCRAFT IT MRO | WHITE PAPER: CONDUCE | 29
services which inc
such as Gmail an
Orkut; the Andro
Mark Zuckerber
of social media an
rival to MySpace,
cropped up aroun
by doing so many
delibera
click
shee
social
e�ect. A d
What these mon
(apart from billiona
awesome technolo
become what they
consumer market.
technologists, mak
into the open arch
consumer technol
it is di!cult to see
Aerospace Exec
bene�t analysis to
consumer technol
help. �ose busin
competitive advant
through lack of wi
technology vendo
required today, to
Aviation IT depa
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30 | WHITE PAPER: CONDUCE | AIRCRAFT IT MRO | APRIL-MAY 2011
and pr
ocedures resulting in blocked access to certain websites and applications. It is fair
to say that nowadays social media sites bear the brunt of the blame.
“if you have employees spending two hours or more per day on Social Media websites, then you have a management issue, not an IT security issue. Persistent time wasters should be dealt with by their management”
PRODUCTIVITY
Plain and simple, if you have employees spending two hours or more per day
on Social Media websites, then you have a management issue, not an IT security
issue. Persistent time wasters should be dealt with by their management and
managers who are unable to deal with that situation should be dealt with in
turn. Blocking access to Facebook or YouTube doesn’t solve the problem either.
Employees who don’t want to get their work done don’t need social networks to
waste time. Besides, due to the expansiveness of the web and the proliferation of
smart phones, resistance, as they say, is futile. �e internet interprets censorship
as damage and routes around it. Recent civil unrest in the Middle East and
North Africa has proved this point on a much wider and more signi�cant scale.
If you take away YouTube, what’s to stop me bringing in a DVD tomorrow?
In my line of work, I spend a lot of time thinking. Whether I am writing
code, writing content, or solving a problem I need to get into the ‘zone’ to help
me think. I sometimes do that by taking a wander. Sometimes I’ll go and get a
drink. O�en my best thoughts occur to me in the morning whilst I’m having
a shave… I think this is because it takes my brain ten minutes to boot up in
the morning and it’s around that time each day that I’m hacking at my face
with a razor. But each to their own: some people I know �nd horrible music to
be the answer; others prefer less awful music. I know many people in creative
industries who take a walk outside with a camera to seek inspiration. Certainly
it is not inappropriate to seek guidance, inspiration and information online.
Companies spend a lot of time and e�ort to attract the brightest and best talent.
Why do they then proceed to remove one of the best tools in their employee’s
information arsenal by blocking access to large portions of the net? Employees
whose access to the internet is restricted will miss great ideas and opportunities
that emerge from conversation and collaboration.
percentage of companies are also active on Twitter. With so many companies
blocking their employees from engaging, who are they engaging with? Social
networks are a vital and proven tool for marketing, recruiting, customer service
and more. Why the resistance?and more. Why the resistance?
The airline’s marketing team used their cigarette breaks to covertly check what their
passengers were saying about them on Twitter
In fact multiple studies now have shown that productivity increases among
employees who are able to freely access the internet during work. Besides,
most employees tend to be more trustworthy than they are given credit for, and
it’s a pretty sad state of a�airs when we can’t trust our own employees to do the
right thing.
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ATTACKS FROM HACKERS
Apparently social networking is one of the newest and most e�ective ways
for hackers to gain entry into peoples’ computers. �at might be true for
organisations where their IT departments don’t know what they are doing.
It is true that there is malware out there which attacks social networks, but
according to anti-malware vendors the same malware is plaguing email and
the rest of the web. I don’t see any companies doing a blanket shutdown on
emails any time soon. So what gives?
�e US military is able to cope with an open access policy to social
networking. Why should it be any harder for any other organisation? �e US
Department of Defence allows every one of their users from agents at the
Pentagon to soldiers on the front line to access their Social Media hub through
a series of robust policies and defences.
�ere is plenty of good advice online about more e�ective ways of keeping
your network safe than by blocking social networks. My personal favourite is to
keep an up-to-date web browser, but more on that shortly.
DATA LEAKS
Opponents to open web access will point to multiple instances of employees
compromising intellectual property using social networks. Like the productivity
argument, this is sheer stupidity. Lack of access to social media will do nothing
to stop this kind of behaviour. Training, education and enforcement of policies
are far more e�ective. A determined or clueless employee will cause such leaks
at home or via other means anyway.
SLOWING A COMPANY’S INTERNET CONNECTION
�is is the hardest argument to disagree with. Yes I concede, if everyone is streaming
video and audio during working hours then this will have a detrimental e�ect on
information age, if you need more bandwidth, get some more. In the ‘paper-age’
nobody thought twice about getting more paper when they ran out.
But aside from restricted internet access, what else are Aviation IT departments
doing (or not doing) that makes little sense?
UP TO DATE WEB BROWSERS
PC based internet users, under their own free will have essentially �ve choices
to make regarding which internet browser they use. In fact since anti-trust
forced to make a choice.
The options are Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Apple Safari and Microsoft Explorer.
would be the worst choice anyone could make based on speed tests, security
users. It is worse than that though: Many organisations don’t even allow the use
kicking in many airlines, OEMs and MROs that I have worked with.
Even Microso� themselves can’t see the sense in the use of out-dated browsers.
the previous year, a signi�cant proportion of the World’s population still needs a
bit more encouragement to migrate.
�e excuses against an upgrade are lame to say the least. No-one pays for
browser licenses, the cost of deployment and cross-training is minimal and the
age old excuse of application compatibility is just ridiculous with alternative
browsers o�ering compatibility add-ins. Aviation IT departments should be
made to understand that senseless policies that are restrictive and can only
be explained by saying ‘because we say so’ make users despise you, and don’t
generate any bene�t whatsoever.
�e real reason can’t be that IT departments don’t realise this. Perhaps it’s just
that they don’t have the time and resources to manage things di�erently.
APRIL-MAY 2011 | AIRCRAFT IT MRO | WHITE PAPER: CONDUCE | 31
AVAILABLE
NOW
AMICOS
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IT RESOURCES ARE A SCARCE COMMODITY
Although there are some widely debated theories on this subject, a ratio of one
level for most medium sized businesses. �e company’s technological dependence;
the quantity and type of IT resources deployed; and the level outsourcing
arrangements will all have an impact on the suitability of a company’s IT sta!ng
ratio and the ability of the team to deliver the required service.
Well run IT departments should align their own interests solely with the
objectives of the business. �e person in charge of IT should have a solid
business as well as technology mind. �e trouble is that most IT departments
are bogged down with resetting passwords and plugging in printers for feckless
users or squeezing every drop of performance out of groaning IT resources just
to keep the Exchange server running. It’s a no-win situation. If they do their
job well, no one notices. When they screw up, the website goes down; revenue
wearing clogs that his brother-in-law sent him. Consequently everyone comes
down on them like a ton of bricks. In one IT department that I worked in, we
had a laminated card with ‘YES WE KNOW’ printed on it that we used to pin
to our door during times of hardship.
When they’re not working on the day to day housekeeping chores, there is the
list of projects which is prioritised by the senior management or by whoever can
shout the loudest. Many of these projects have been conceived months and years
in the past and are out of date before they are even embarked upon. Managers
who appreciate the backlog either don’t bother or seek their own solutions. IT
departments therefore
monopolise the
computer problem
rather than pro-
actively providing
solutions. If an
external supplier had
behaved this way,
they’d have been
dropped years ago.
Aviation IT
departments needs to
re-de�ne their service
level agreements with
the rest of the business
(if they ever had one) and look to provide an improved business service that
their ‘customers’ really need.
MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS ARE GREAT BUT
THEY DON’T DO EVERYTHING.
Most airlines and MROs who are using a latest generation enterprise level
Management Information System (MIS) seem to be pretty happy with it. �ey
tend to use it to its full extent as intended with wall-to-wall capability, mission
the so�ware tool to carry out their operational transactions. A well designed IT
functionality is usually �lled with �le servers crammed full of shared documents,
spread sheets and home grown databases all outside of the control of IT with
little if any integration with central systems.
One client showed me a mission critical, home grown Access Database which
their engineering and ERP (enterprise resource planning) systems providing
vital operational information to an international "eet and inventory technical
management operation. �is is of course an extreme example that I have seen
�rst-hand, but the numbers of uncontrolled spread sheets that are outside the
control of IT should be a major concern. Maybe if the ERP, Engineering and
other information systems that airlines are using were a bit more open and able to
communicate with each other using an up to date Service Oriented Architecture
(SOA) then integration with external systems would be so much easier negating
the requirement for home-grown stop-gap peripheral solutions.
Data is being passed from department to department, o�en transposed from
one bit of paper to a database application and then printed back to paper
32 | WHITE PAPER: CONDUICE | AIRCRAFT IT MRO | APRIL-MAY 2011
og
“IT are asking whether we have tried turning it o! and on again”
SCREEN GRAB OF WEBSITE
What’s coming up in the June/July 2011 edition
of AircraftIT MROAvailable 7th June at www.aircraftIT.com
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The application of Wireless Sensor Network Technology in MROs and at Turkish Technic: how the network functions and an analysis of the practical benefits.
Dr. Orkun Hasekioglu, CIO, Turkish Technic
Heavy Maintenance and IT Systems. How technology can optimise resources, and minimise costs and hangar time.
Phil Bathurst, Partner, Phisha Aviation Consulting LLC
The challenges in capturing man-hours and materials consumed in airframe checks: the practicalities of the IT systems used and the benefits are analyzed.
Roberto Asuncion, VP IT, Lufthansa Technik Philippines.
CMS has been an afterthought to MRO/IT selection…until NOW.
Thanos Kaponeridis, President & CEO, Aerosoft Systems.
Marshall Aerospace’s Power Play; the development of an in-house system: an electrical load analysis (ELA) application that models an aircraft’s distributed power structure.
Karl Jones, Head of Avionics & Technical Development, Marshall Aerospace.
PLUS: Latest News and Technology Updates, Preview of upcoming Live Software Demonstration Webinars, Latest Industry Vacancies (New Feature), Software Directory...
Click here to subscribe for free now to reserve your copy
Contact us for further details Visit: www.aircraftIT.com email: [email protected] or call +44 1403 230 700 / +44 1273 700 555
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34 | WHITE PAPER: CONDUICE | AIRCRAFT IT MRO | APRIL-MAY 2011
in a slightly di�erent format. For some reason,
collaboration between departments, information
systems and with external partners is a big problem.
Presumably the solution to the problem is at the end
of a list of projects that was initiated �ve years ago. p je y go
“This new software is superb. The output report looks
exactly the same as the form we receive to input the data!”
Most tools and application chosen by IT departments
are engineered for IT departments not business. Take
Microso� SharePoint for example. No business, le�
to its own devices would ever choose SharePoint as a
solution to any problem, but steered by IT, they o�en
do. SharePoint is great at allowing you to do the stu�
you used to do, only di�erently, but IT departments
like it, because it allows them to control everything
from one management console. �at’s probably
unfairly over-simplifying the situation, but the fact
remains that I cannot point you to a single aerospace
organisation that has implemented SharePoint where
the users are happy with the outcome.
EVERYONE WANTS IPADS BUT NO-ONE
KNOWS WHAT TO DO WITH THEM
If I had a pound for every airline I know whose
Chief Executive has decreed that each manager or
aircra� or "ight crew should be equipped with an
iPad, then I’d probably have enough money for a
decent round of drinks. �ere are a number of
barriers to achieving this goal, let alone making a
return on that investment.
Although the iPad may be deemed to be a mature
consumer product in terms of the quantity in
circulation and the number of available apps, it
should most certainly be considered bleeding edge
as an aviation productivity device. Despite approval
as a Class 1 Electronic Flight Bag and the on-going
promise of the revolution the iPad poses to In Flight
Entertainment, the viability of the iPad as a ‘ready-
for-business’ device is less than certain. Of course
one is able to create, edit and share documents; run
a bewildering series of applications and utilities; but
potential users may be disappointed to learn that access
to a mature suite of relevant so�ware or interfaces with
existing information systems simply do not exist (yet).
Due to the overwhelming success of the iPad and
other iOS devices, there is no deal to be struck
with Apple Inc. for volume purchases. I know of
several airlines that, when they approached Apple
to procure a large quantity of iPads, were given
directions to the nearest Apple Store.
Assuming that you have enough buying power to
cut a deal and that you know what you are going
to use your iPads for, you then still have the barrier
of deployment and administration. Enterprise
management qualities for iOS devices is sometimes
moved Apple devices properly into the business
shortcomings over the opposition but largely this
lies with the perception within the IT community.
In my opinion lack of familiarity o�en breeds
contempt. �e post-PC era is upon us and aviation
IT departments should embrace that.IT departments should embrace that.
Steve’s launch of the iPad2 triggered enough eye-rolling
in the aviation IT community to temporarily knock the
Earth o! its axis.
IS THERE A BETTER WAY?
Business trends are, in the main, cyclical. I believe
that we are entering a period of decentralisation
for aviation IT. �e rise of technologies such as
virtualisation, cloud based applications and XaaS
(Anything as a Service) have facilitated a shi� away
from traditional ways of working. Outsourcing
and department speci�c solutions are a realistic
proposition. I’m not advocating that aviation should
abandon shared IT services completely. It doesn’t
make sense to ditch Exchange servers in favour of
hosted Gmail: �ere is always going to be a place
for an IT department in aerospace to some extent,
but a transition has begun.
In the same way that certain procurement and
departments, I foresee more and more autonomy for
aviation IT users in the future. Progressive managers
are making some IT decisions for themselves
through necessity already. �is arrangement will
become increasingly formalised, with centralised IT
departments assuming overall control, but delegating
speci�c administrative functions and application
management to individual departments. �e IT
guy or girl of the future will be less technical, with
business domain speci�c expertise (more akin to
project managers) equipped to run systems rather
than develop them. As applications become more
closely aligned to business requirements o� the
shelf, it is becoming more important to deliver
services and manage supplier contracts than to
develop systems.
If you are running a company in such a way that a
traditional IT department is needed in order to
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Despite approval as a Class 1 Electronic Flight Bag and the on-going promise of the revolution the iPad poses to In Flight Entertainment, the viability of the iPad as a ‘ready-for-business’ device is less than certain
accomplish your market objectives then you are at a
strategic and �nancial disadvantage over a
competitor that operates di�erently.
“Despite their best e!orts, the IT department weren’t
able to stop the Chief Exec from using a Mac.”