B787 Aircraft Parts Heading to Blockchain

The blockchain journey has begun!

Boeing announced the launch of its new wide-body aircraft, the Boeing 787 aircraft 20 years ago now, on January 29, 2003. Back then, I was just beginning a 6-year journey leading the implementation of SAP for the newly merged Honeywell Aerospace and Allied Signal, key suppliers to Boeing platforms. It was during that work I began to formulate the vision for what we call “Data for the Life of the Aircraft”. A moniker that just could NOT be implemented in any way due to the competing nature of the industrial actors around the sharing of aircraft parts data and the low level of data sharing technology available. 

With the emergence of blockchain technology over the past 8 years, technology has finally caught up with this business vision. The regulators and industry trade associations have been tinkering with the notion of enabling “back to birth” tracking for aircraft parts, but today, this will be an industry led effort. For the past two years, SkyThread has been working across the industry to build consensus around the business issues, framing the opportunity and building the technology stack that would enable the trusted sharing of validated non-confidential information about the history of a part.

Nearly 5 Million Aircraft Parts

Our first industry cluster is being formed now and will center around rotable parts for the B787 aircraft. The cluster leader supports pool programs for 21 airlines with 200 B787 aircraft. This will post the first 700,000 aircraft parts on the chain. From this base, we will support all the Tier 1 parts makers in recording the original birth records for the aircraft parts flying today. These parts makers have produced over 3.7 million aircraft platforms over the past 20 years. And they deployed another 1 million parts into the spares market to support AOG and planned maintenance activities. We will continue our progression through all 3,500 serialized part numbers on each aircraft.

Eight years after the launch of the program, ANA received their first aircraft as the launch customer for the platform. Since that day, 83 airlines have ordered over 1,600 aircraft. After the launch of the rotable pool on the blockchain, we will recruit and onboard the industry actors responsible for keeping these aircraft “mission ready.”

Recruiting Industry Actors Now!

• Tier 1 Parts Makers – the 1st block in the chain, the manufactured part birth record with documents
• Tier 1 Parts Makers – the 1st use of the part – where did it ship?  Airframe, airline, or distributor
• Airlines – the induction of the aircraft into the fleet – identification of the 1st tail number becomes the 3rd block on the chain.
• Airlines – we will collect the parts on wing today (all confidential) to “snap the line” and find the specific parts on specific planes.

Over the past 12 years, the aircraft has gone through its teenage years and parts are moving to “steady state” from a reliability standpoint. A little bit easier to plan. But in today’s “supply chain challenged” world, anything we can do to help find “the right part for the right plane in the right place in the right time” is appreciated.   So, during these years, many maintenance activities have been completed.

SkyThread is also recruiting MRO hangars and Part 145 repair stations who have maintained these parts and planes to join the chain. The non-confidential repair parameters for each part will be collected and posted. 

SkyThread is recruiting distributors to record the new and USM parts in their inventories – not to interfere with the sales process for these parts (SkyThread is not a marketplace), but to provide validation and verification of the authenticity of parts where all we have “with the part”, is the latest 8130 tag for that part.

SkyThread is recruiting aircraft and asset decommissioning centers to support the tracking of inbound parts on their aircraft or asset and enable the “data sharing” of parts coming off the aircraft / asset that will move into the USM markets.

What about Engines, Landing Systems and APU’s?

Yes. We’re working with a large industry actor to frame the engine configuration lifecycle track and trace capabilities. This proof of concept is underway with 3 large industry actors today, including a major airline MRO provider. We are engaged at some level now, with 3 major MRO service providers. Discussions are underway with both Landing Systems and APU service providers.

What Happens to Parts in the Chain?

We’ve built the event lifecycle of an aircraft part into the blockchain. We’re tracking the “events” a part travels through over its life and recording those events on the chain. This is a permissioned data network, so if you are a relevant actor to the data in question, the provider of the data will be able to provide “permission” for your use. All through the security built into the chain.   

An important point – while the contributor of the data “owns” the data, we attribute the data to the part to provide visibility to that data when the part changes ownership. This is a key change in how the world works today, where the recipient of the part can usually only see those activities on that part since its last install. Complex assets have better traceability, but still contain part lifecycle gaps and un-validated data.

The sum of the parts equals a plane. 

You remember the adage – a plane is a million parts flying in common formation”. Today, it’s a flying computer and it “talks to us” as it’s flying. While our goal here is not to compete with the analytics firms trying to intercept and interpret this data, we’ll be capturing other information from the aircraft, such as hours and cycles, which are critical to the spare planning, reliability analysis and early removal analysis. We’ll be applying this information to the complex assemblies on the aircraft and the individual parts within that asset and the plane itself. The goal is to eliminate the frustrating condition called "no fault found".

We’re building the blockchain from the “bottom up” at the parts level, and from the “top down” capturing parts on wing today.

Supporting Aircraft Events

The Boeing 787 aircraft leases have begun expiring, heavy checks have begun, aircraft sales continue, and yes, two 787 aircraft have moved into aircraft decommissioning to be parted out.

Having the validated assembly of parts lists with serialization of the aircraft “ready” at major aircraft events will significantly reduce the time it takes to complete an aircraft or asset event, and its associated costs. These planes and engines need to be “in service”. So, any activities that reduce their revenue mission readiness are a significant drain on the ROIC on these assets.   

Knowing which parts need to be removed and replaced and knowing the remaining lives of other parts have a big impact on the realization of value during the aircraft or engine event. Knowing the life history of a part will affect its realization in the USM market by a large amount.

Aviation Blockchain is Here

SkyThread was formed in 2021 by senior industry executives to “solve” for this important safety, aircraft availability and economic issue. The industry has been experimenting with blockchain for the past 8 years. This cycle of “Proof of Concepts” has laid down a pretty good path towards what will work and where challenges remain. But we’re now beyond “concepts” and driving for sustainable value. The solutions we’re building include -

• SkyThread for Parts – finds and authenticates the parts, validates their status, and documents their provenance. Triangulates all parts data when the part enters the MRO cycle of removals, repairs, installation, and scrap.
• SkyThread for Assets – solves for which parts are on which assets (engines, landing systems and APU) and do they carry the SkyThread parts validation?
• SkyThread for Planes – solves for which parts and assets are on which tail numbers. Is that information validated by SkyThread?

The outcome? Over the next aircraft lifecycle, we, as an industry, will have validated and authenticated the location (on wing / off wing) and status of all the serialized parts that keep our fleets flying and / or mission ready. Note that we’re working with the industry lead Independent Data Consortium for Aviation to build consensus around this vision and mission Independent Data Consortium for Aviation.

How is the data validated?

The system uses data triangulation to support part research, looking for gaps and overlaps in the part life data and flags those as “gap” events in the chain. Call us to talk about how “validation” would work for you and benefit your operations.

We’ve been publishing an article series on this journey. Here are the links to the articles. 

Aircraft Parts – Authentication, Validation, Triangulation and Provenance

Aviation Industry Blockchain is Here

SkyThread for Parts

This Plane is on the Chain

This Part is on the Chain

Aircraft Decommissioning

Improving Aviation Sustainability

Aircraft on Ground (AOG)

U.S. Air Force Leads the Way with Blockchain

Global Parts Registry - It's Time

Clear Skies Ahead  

Keeping Planes Flying

Aircraft Parts Lifecycles

SkyThread - 2023 Blog