Yesterday Boeing Co. announced that they are buying Aurora flight sciences. Aurora is a pioneer in making co-pilot robotics and software to sense landing tracks. With this this acquisition Boeing seems to be betting on the AI and robotics market for the future of the commercial airline industry (Johnsson, 2017a). This conjecture is all but weakened by the fact that Boeing is also backing the start-up Zunum Aero. Zunum Aero specializes in making aircrafts that are fully powered by electricity and can already fly 700 miles on a full battery pack. They are also experimenting with charging technology to let them “refuel” those battery packs within 10 minutes(!) (Johnsson, 2017b).
Aurora, is not only known for its co-pilot robotics. It has been in the news lately for a new air-taxi prototype which can take-off and land vertically. Aurora aims to deliver 50 fully electric self-flying aircrafts to Uber Elevate. Indeed, you read “Uber”. Uber is currently exploring new ways to let people travel and to make travel more convenient and faster.
Apart from the acquisition of Aurora and investment in Zunum Aero, Boeing is also improving their IT strategy by using the IoT and blockchain technology (Gutierrez, 2017). They are using IoT in combination with blockchain to improve almost all their operations along their value chain. Boeing is using IoT and Blockchain to improve their own manufacturing process. By connecting all their manufacturing equipment to the cloud and by placing sensors in their products, they can follow the entire manufacturing process neatly and analyse where they can improve and be more efficient. But it does not stop there. After the finalized product, in Boeing’s case often an aircraft, is delivered to the customer, they keep tracking performance of all the parts in the airplane by sending sensor data into the cloud. They analyse this data and predict when maintenance needs to happens. Because of this, Boeing now delivers the final product and the service to keep their product running all the time which adds value for Boeing but more importantly, for the consumer.
As you can see Boeing is on the cutting edge of innovation in the aircraft industry and it looks as if they are preparing for a new era in the airline industry.
References:
Johnsson, M. (2017a). Boeing Bets on Robot Pilots, Air Taxis With Aurora Takeover. [online] Bloomberg.com. Available at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-05/boeing-bets-on-robot-pilots-self-flying-taxis-with-acquisition [Accessed 6 Oct. 2017].
Johnsson, M. (2017b). Boeing-Backed Startup Sees Hybrid-Electric Flights in Five Years. [online] Bloomberg.com. Available at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-10-05/boeing-backed-startup-plots-hybrid-planes-with-nod-to-musk-787 [Accessed 6 Oct. 2017].
Gutierrez, C. (2017). Boeing Improves Operations with Blockchain and the Internet of Things – Cloud Foundry Live | Altoros. [online] Cloud Foundry Live | Altoros. Available at: https://www.altoros.com/blog/boeing-improves-operations-with-blockchain-and-the-internet-of-things/ [Accessed 6 Oct. 2017].
The impact information technology had on flight safety is truly astonishing. While you focus on the huge advantages IoT has for the customers, it should not be forgotten that Boeing itself can benefit tremendously. I see two big advantages. Firstly, they can spot possible maintenance needs early on and hence have accurate information on which parts are most likely to require attention by the engineering team to improve new models. In the long run, this can decrease the time a plane has to be in maintenance during its lifetime. This directly increases the utilization as compared to other plane models and may thereby be a major reason for airlines for purchase planes from Boeing rather than from its competitors. Secondly, it can also generate considerable revenues with its maintenance services rather than just from selling planes. Through it ́s real time and even predictive analytics, it can perfectly cater its maintenance offerings to the needs of a certain airplane and thereby compete more successfully against third-party providers of aircraft maintenance.
As already mentioned, blockchain in the aviation industry can be a significant boon to safety and cost savings in bringing trace-ability to the supply chain. You might be interested in a recent Accenture report on the adoption of blockchain in the aviation industry, where they expect that 85% of aerospace and defence companies will use the tech by 2021! Distributed ledger technology (DLT) is especially useful where strict records are needed to comply with safety requirements so it seems like a proper fit!
So besides Boeing, many aviation companies are already looking into it. Accenture states that more than half of all companies in the industry that they looked at are in some way researching the technology. Accenture itself is currently working with Thales to provide a blockchain solution, whereas e.g. Gazprom Neft already has a blockchain based payment system in place for kerosene payments.
This info comes from this article, its quite an interesting read!:
https://blockonomi.com/blockchain-in-aviation/