How Innovation, Collaboration, and FLIGHT DECK Power Resilient Skies

The Asia-Pacific aviation sector is on an upward climb, fueled by rising passenger and cargo demand, new connections, and large-scale investment in infrastructure. But with this growth comes an important question: Can the region's maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) ecosystem keep pace?

This question was at the heart of the "Advancing MRO for a Resilient Aerospace Industry in Asia-Pacific" roundtable, hosted by The Business Times in Singapore on September 3. The session brought together voices from across the ecosystem - government, industry, and global MRO leaders - for an open discussion on the opportunities and challenges ahead.

"Asia-Pacific is emerging as a defining region for the future of flight," said Nakul Gupta, vice president of sales and general manager of the Asia-Pacific region at GE Aerospace. "This is one of the fastest-growing aviation markets in the world, and in the next 15 years it is poised to become one of the largest as well in terms of passenger traffic, while the global fleet is expected to grow about 3% annually."

While the regional outlook is bullish, the roundtable panel - which included Iain Rodger, managing director of GE Aerospace Component Repair in Singapore; Zheng Jingxin, vice president of mobility and industrial solutions at the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB); Yin Hin Meng, executive vice president and head of aerospace MRO at ST Engineering; and The Business Times' Derryn Wong as moderator - acknowledged that an aviation boom will also bring growing pains, from supply chain bottlenecks and skilled labor shortages to the adoption of new technologies.

"Growth is a challenge, but I would rather have growth as a challenge than some of the others that the industry has faced," said Rodger.

Keeping Parts Moving

Sustaining the pace of change is contingent on diverse elements and forces, and minimizing supply chain disruption is one of the most important factors, according to the panel. Bottlenecks in the flow of parts and logistics can quickly ripple across the industry, affecting players at every level.

"For aerospace, our status as Asia's leading MRO hub, a lot of it is contingent on having a very strong supply chain management as a value proposition," said Jingxin. He pointed to two key building blocks underpinning this strength: Singapore's wide network of free trade agreements and economic partnerships that ensure connectivity and flexibility, and a robust supplier ecosystem fostered through close industry-government collaboration.

One key engagement effort helping GE Aerospace respond to supply chain challenges and bottlenecks is FLIGHT DECK, the company's proprietary lean operating model. "About a year and a half ago, we stood alone as an independent company and reorganized with laser focus on supply chain matters. Today we have 550 embedded supply chain professionals and engineers working with our top suppliers to improve quality and delivery," said Rodger.

"And this approach is making a difference," he added. "In Q2 we saw a 10% increase from our priority suppliers, and the overall supply chain delivered over 95% of its committed deliveries. Here in Singapore, we are teaching FLIGHT DECK to first-tier suppliers, and in one example, we have seen a 50% increase in output and volume for the LEAP engine.*"

ST Engineering is also strengthening its supply chain systems. A strong focus on inventory management enables the group to better predict regional demand, as well as the volume and type of work required, such as salvaging, repurposing, or reworking components back to serviceable status.

Filling Skill and Workplace Gaps

Rapid development driven by rising flight volumes will stress the MRO sector, particularly workforce capacity to upskill teams and attract new talent, more than one panelist pointed out.

This challenge is timely and relevant to Singapore. According to the Singapore EDB, between 2021 and 2023, 3,000 aviation sector jobs were created in the city-state, and 2,500 new opportunities are predicted in the near term.

Rodger described Singapore's aerospace ecosystem as second to none. He cited the Career Conversion Programme overseen by Workforce Singapore as a good example of working with tripartite partners - government, employers, and labor unions - to identify future trends and the skills needed to support them. He also emphasized GE Aerospace's local and global talent initiatives.

"We do a lot ourselves and have developed a strong pedigree of repair technology. We work with our engineering talents to train them on current and future techniques and technologies," said Rodger. "We're also looking at a global manufacturing engineering development plan where we will take people from all parts of the world to our global centers - so talent will come to Singapore, and Singaporeans can go to Europe and the U.S."

Yin Hin Meng noted that ST Engineering is intent on tapping global talent and attracting more women into the sector. "We partner with the schools. We partner with Pensacola State University. We partner with Guangzhou Academy, the university, to just get a pipeline of folks in. But what is not spoken about is gender diversity," said Meng. "And I think it is up to us to be working with women in aviation, which we are a strong supporter of, to develop the next generation, not just for men, but for women."

Innovations Shaped by Customer Needs

Optimism about the future is strengthened by the rapid development and adoption of advanced technologies in MRO. The panelists shared case studies of working with AI, predictive analytics, digital twins, and innovation plans. A key behavior required to help innovate is the need to be customer driven. Rodger said this has helped GE Aerospace define value as measured through the eyes of its customers.

"We're implementing solutions that make a difference in safety, quality, delivery, and cost," he said. "Backed with training and development, we see many examples of this. Our turbine nozzle facility here in Singapore, for example, has reduced its production footprint by 33%. This is the trend we aim to continue - growing business and increasing output while reducing our footprint."

While AI is a hot topic today, Rodger said GE Aerospace has implemented AI within its products and services for over a decade. The company also has worked closely with customers on predictive maintenance and used digital twin technology to provide deeper parts data to better identify issues - the same kind of data that shapes maintenance and MRO services as well.

A Shared Path to Regional Growth

Optimism about the regional MRO ecosystem's ability to keep pace with the rate of growth was evident in the call from panelists for deeper collaboration and cooperation.

ST Engineering's Meng said stakeholders need to work more closely to deliver better outcomes to customers, because customer-centricity is everything - and that requires finding the right partners to meet or exceed customer needs.

"There is a community of cooperation between companies and the government," said the Singapore EDB's Zheng, who noted that strong cooperation was crucial to good growth. "But I don't want to take this for granted, because I want to be able to quickly make one call to say, 'Hey, we need to work on something.' It's quite easy for us to brainstorm new ideas and bring the industry forward in terms of things like manpower, infrastructure, even innovation and R&D."

In closing, Rodger said that deep MRO sector collaboration offers the clearest path to optimizing the Asia-Pacific growth opportunity.

"Given the anticipated MRO growth and the big volumes, we look at an open market for development, because we know we cannot do it alone," he said. "We are all part of a wider economy where we see air travel as an enabler of growth on many fronts, and it makes sense to collaborate with partners, government agencies, and OEMs to make the most of what is in front of us."

*The CFM LEAP engine is produced by CFM International, a 50-50 joint company between GE Aerospace and Safran Aircraft Engines.