For airports to function optimally, ground support equipment is fundamental. This category involves all the vehicles and equipment used to service aircraft between flights - from refuelers, buses and emergency vehicles to passenger boarding stairs and belt loaders.
Airlines seldom handle the acquisition and maintenance of these vehicles and equipment themselves. Instead, they rely on specialized providers such as Alvest Equipment Services (AES).
AES is active in hundreds of airports across Europe, Asia and North America, and is the top player in the United States and Saudi Arabia. This success owes much to its high-quality services, robust processes and dedicated software platform, Attune EAM.
Identifying goals
Six years ago, AES’s parent company, Alvest, saw an opportunity that prompted the organization to enter the market for ground support services. The group specializes in manufacturing ground support equipment and noted that the related service activity - maintaining, renovating, renting or leasing it - had a low level of maturity.
“When I entered the industry, I was expecting a level of maintenance maturity on par with airlines. Quite the opposite: the use of a computerized maintenance management system (CMMS) or an enterprise asset management (EAM) solution was, in fact, very rare,” says Fabrice Denninger, CEO, AES.
This came with several negative consequences. The industry largely relied on manual, pen-and-paper processes and corrective maintenance activities rather than preventative ones. Additionally, specialized maintenance workers would spend hours on clerical activities that could be digitized or automated, such as reporting on measured values.
Addressing these flaws could lead to double-digit gains in asset availability and a much higher quality of service. AES, therefore, initiated a tender to find the right digital platform.
Overcoming challenges
AES selected Attune EAM based on several criteria:
Its out-of-the-box features allowed the software to be rapidly deployed. Even today, AES’s need for custom configurations or ad hoc developments has remained minimal.
The platform’s robustness and versatility meant that it could serve as AES’s ERP with limited need for third-party software.
Attune EAM’s cloud architecture and multilingual capabilities made it a natural match for AES’s international activities.
LLP Group, an Octave implementation partner, played an important role in guiding and coaching AES to deploy the solution rapidly and successfully. After an initial six-week pilot with Boeing, AES introduced Attune EAM to its US operations before extending it to Saudi Arabia and, finally, deploying it globally.
Realizing results
Today, Attune EAM has become a pillar of AES’s success. “At AES, the use of Attune EAM is mandatory in each of our geographies. We now have nearly a thousand users and everyone in our organization, 100% of our employees, uses Attune EAM,” explains Fabrice Denninger.
The platform has become the true backbone of AES’s operations: “Maintenance technicians use Attune EAM mobile on their tablets, and everyone, from the back office, sales administration and accounting to the top management, is on Attune EAM. It’s really the nerve center of our operations,” describes Fabrice Denninger. “We manage our own fleet there, our clients’ fleets, all preventive and corrective maintenance, scheduling, all local and central spare parts stocks, supplier orders, cost management and recording of labor and subcontracting costs. Everything is done in Attune EAM.”
Because of this prominent role, Attune EAM’s constant availability is essential - and Fabrice Denninger underlines that its uptime is second to none: “In five years, it has never been unavailable - which is really crucial for our operations.”
Double-digit boost in equipment availability
This strategy has served AES well. The company works with leading companies such as Delta Airlines and Alaska Airlines in dozens of airports across the United States. They also work with major logistics players such as Amazon, UPS and FedEx. Plus, the company holds a commanding position in Saudi Arabia, operating out of 28 airports.
This success reflects AES’s ability to bring material results to its clients. In Saudi Arabia, for example, the use of Attune EAM has helped increase equipment availability from 65% in December 2020 to 91% today. “This is fundamentally related to how we use Attune EAM. We noticed that mechanics would only do corrective maintenance and forgo preventative measures if they acted on their own initiative.
"We are now bringing this data-driven approach that tells them what they need to do, rather than act on intuition or personal preferences,” explains Fabrice Denninger.
This increase in availability and efficiency is crucial for AES in delivering high-end services to its clients and establishing a presence in various airports, a key step for growth in the industry.
Productivity gains equivalent to dozens of FTEs
Attune EAM has also brought productivity gains by serving as a hub to centralize, digitize and automate time-consuming processes.
“We can now leverage our own IoT solutions and connected equipment using Octave Databridge Pro. This enables us to acquire our equipment’s position and operating time and automatically generate maintenance schedules. In Saudi Arabia, we were able to automate data transfer across 28 airports and 2,000 pieces of equipment. And we had 25 employees doing clerical work and reading meter values every day who could return to servicing equipment,” says Fabrice Denninger.