MKS Solutions for Aerospace & Defense has announced that All Nippon Airways (ANA) has selected MKS Integrity™ for secure software configuration and change management on Boeing 787 aircraft. ANA will be the first airline to operate the Boeing 787.
“Our ‘MKS Integrity for Avionics’ solution will enable us to leverage the airplane software configuration data across our engineering and maintenance divisions, efficiently and securely verifying the integrity of the aircraft when software-related maintenance activity occurs,” said Akio Ito, manager of maintenance and engineering systems in the information technology services department of ANA. “We have developed a strong, close working relationship with the MKS team and we look forward to continuing work with that team during this project to deliver an optimal solution, as we get closer now to the beginning of our B787 service.”
“We evaluated an in-house development approach versus a ‘package as a platform’ approach. We then considered carefully the close technical relationship between MKS and Boeing, as well as the ability to quickly incorporate data schema changes in MKS Integrity, as we reached our decision,” continued Mr Ito. “We were highly satisfied with the flexibility of the MKS Integrity platform, which enabled the efficient creation of an optimal solution incorporating all of our requirements, workflow, and system landscape – more rapidly than would have been the case with an in-house development project.”
David Jones, MKS managing director for Airline e-Enabling, comments: “ANA has a strong and realizable vision for leveraging software configuration data across its organization and systems landscape and this vision drives further value into our ‘MKS Integrity for Avionics’ solution. Other airlines will benefit from that, as we begin marketing the solution globally. Methodology for aircraft maintenance is evolving as modern aircraft contain more software and ‘MKS Integrity for Avionics’ co-resides neatly alongside the traditional HW-based maintenance systems, providing leverage of existing investments as airlines move forward into managing the additional complexity caused by software decoupling from hardware.”
Mr Jones continued: “MKS is now working with other airlines on Boeing 777 electronic flight bag (EFB) content and change management, as well as Airbus 380 software and EFB content and change management. The opportunity for airlines which ‘MKS Integrity for Avionics’ makes possible is therefore fleet wide management of software related maintenance activity and compliance.”
