Aircraft maintenance, repair, and operational (MRO) services are full of strict deadlines, vital decisions, and intense documentation. With that burden of accountability, MRO providers require tools to help make each step of their work as simple and straightforward as possible. To aid those in the aerospace MRO industry, Locatory.com – a subsidiary of a part of Lithuania-based Avia Solutions Group – paired with base maintenance consultants in Europe to develop Sensus MRO, a web-based Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution.
Created as a component of Locatory’s Sensus Aero product line, Sensus MRO uses a unique, module-based system designed around the best practices in aircraft lean operations to make MRO processes more efficient with less human effort.
Locatory is the leading aircraft marketplace in the eastern hemisphere. While the company initially provided aircraft parts locating services, the company has been developing IT solutions and tools to better manage parts supply availability, cost reduction, and procurement for the MRO providers it works with.
As an ERP, the new Sensus MRO system uses advanced reporting engines to facilitate better control and decision-making processes, collecting data from all working hours spent on projects – including time estimates, tooling, and resource pre-draw – to provide detailed reports that compare profitable and non-profitable hours and against expenditures to provide accurate return on investment (ROI) figures.
Sensus MRO tracks and displays client needs like project statuses and required approvals, giving MRO providers the opportunity to check how long it takes for a client to approve the purchase of required materials and monitor the impact of those times on overall project turnaround.
The software can account for budget corrections made through the system according to the changes that happen during varying processes. Automatically generated invoicing data helps reduce the time it takes to bill clients and produces precise information for accounting software. All of this occurs while ensuring the accuracy and reliability of information, provides project cost visibility, and efficiency in cost management. Continuous progress monitoring is used to identify and correct issues immediately.
Even with Sensus MRO’s highly customizable module-based system, Locatory continues to works one-on-one with MRO providers to create individualized software systems that fit the specific needs of a given company. Since Sensus MRO utilizes state-of-the-art cloud computing, the system is accessible from anywhere in the world and provides a great alternative for MRO organizations that want to keep up with technological advances, but are not yet ready to commit to the replacement of an entire ERP system.
According to Locatory, implementation is rapid and accurate allowing highly specific needs to be met for both small projects and full applications.
ERPs, which are designed to help aviation professionals pursue effective results while remaining competitive in a consolidating market, are seeing a boom as of late.
Earlier this year, ERP-provider IFS launched multiple new products in its Maintenix line at its 2018 IFS World Conference in Atlanta. Many of the attendees – representatives from airlines large and small – shared implementation stories citing better decision-making, higher security, improved planning, reduced operational risk, enhanced regulation compliance, and easier aircraft upgrades through the use of ERPs.