Military MRO: Enhancing Readiness By Optimizing Resources and Suppressing Irritants (I of II)

By Murielle Delaporte - Highlights of the third panel of the AD2S conference series, entitled “Innovation in aerospace technical-operational support services, an air power factor”

Moderated by Jean-Marc Roffi, executive engineer and former deputy director of Operations at the DMAé, this panel on innovation brought together the following government and industry experts:

• Lieutenant-Colonel (Air) David Gatignon, Deputy Head of Transverse MRO, Technical and Logistics Brigade (BATL), French Air and Space Force;
• Alain Cristien, Project Manager, Aerospace MRO Innovation, French Defense Innovation Agency (AID), DGA;
• François Boche, Chief Military Aircraft Engineer, Airbus Defence and Space;
• Vincent Gicquel, Research & Technology and Innovation Director, Defense Mission Systems, Thales;
• Naël Le Boucher, Head of Systems and Tools, MBDA.

This panel explored current avenues and prospects for meeting the challenge of innovation adapted to military MRO. Armies, institutions and industries need to be able to plan the integration of technological advances currently being made at exponential speed, in the face of a fluid timetable, not only because of the need to prepare for a major high-intensity conflict - which may “ take place in five, ten or fifteen years ” ⁽¹⁾ or not at all - but also because of the difficulty of matching innovation and contractualization.

“ How can innovation be integrated into contractualization and the verticalization of contracts? “ was the first question posed in the introduction by Jean-Marc Roffi and developed in the conclusion by Vincent Gicquel ⁽²⁾  in relation to two major issues:

• on the one hand, unfit contracts often renegotiated after ten years and not always allowing for an incremental process of integrating innovation, such as artificial intelligence in particular;

• and, secondly, the difficulty of “passing the TRL 5+ mark”⁽³⁾, i.e. the gap in the definition of the “long term” between a process of integrating innovation from SMEs estimated at four-five years and a SCAF-type acquisition process on the horizon of 2035-2040.

The issue of capturing innovation and integrating it incrementally was thus one of the major themes addressed during this panel discussion, along with the associated problem of mastering data and digitalization at the heart of all MRO developments, both as an objective and as a tool for ongoing modernization.

This first section focuses on capturing innovation, before addressing the issue of capturing data in the second section.

1) Capturing innovation: how it works

At the heart of the French Air and Space (AAE) Force's approach is to “ generate readiness and activity ‘ to enable airmen and airwomen to ’ fly for training and combat ”, as Lieutenant-Colonel Gatignon reminded us in his introduction. To achieve this, MRO is seen as a central factor in operations, and the AAE strives to “ center military exercises around technical-operational issues ”.

In doing so, the AAE faces a number of challenges, including:

• the evolving nature of operational contracts, from PPS (permanent safety posture) to potential high-intensity interventions;
• the demand for resilience associated with a war economy;
• the growing complexity of weapons systems;
• the multiplicity of threats, with cyber and digital factors to be taken into account;
• the need to recruit high-level human resources, the dual nature of the aeronautics industry considered an asset.
The modernization of military MRO requires simplification, while the challenge for AAE is twofold: on the one hand, “ the automation of data processing to enable mechanics, technicians and engineers to refocus on their core business ”, and on the other, the sustainability of equipment.

For the AAE, this means ensuring not only the acquisition, but also “ the integration and commissioning of innovations”, and promoting this culture of innovation, “the crucible of the Aviators' pioneering spirit ”. The idea is to support innovators with the help of dedicated expertise units, as well as the hAPPI⁽⁴⁾ collaborative platform, which should ultimately enable the scaling-up of new technologies.

Some 130 innovative projects are currently run by the AAE in the following areas:

• automation of maintenance tables for both fighter and wide-body aircraft;
• assisted towing ;
• augmented reality to save time in the field of NDT control (Non Destructive Testing): “reflectometry tools can now quickly identify defects in electrical wiring, which is often responsible for breakdowns ”, explains the French Air and Space Force officer;
• a new I3D cluster dedicated to assisted additive manufacturing;
• innovations in ergo-skeletons and exo-skeletons;
• the development of a mobile caisson for the MRO of UAVs in operation;
• HUMS processing for conditional and preventive maintenance;
• governance of Big Data Analytics;
• the extension of “ Lean management ” methods already present in French Air and Space Force Bases to production lines.

All these efforts within the AAE have the same objective: “to create readiness by optimizing resources and suppressing irritants ”, concludes Lieutenant-Colonel Gatignon.

For Alain Christien, Project Director at AID, the HAPPI collaborative platform mentioned by Lieutenant-Colonel Gatignon in his presentation is indeed fundamental, as it enables “innovation to be traced”, while other initiatives are being developed within the DGA.

Among them, the “Nation prod View” and the “FA Stargate” (for additive manufacturing) offer a global national and European view of production capacities coming from existing additive manufacturing farms “ up close and in back-loop logistics”.

This “FA Stargate” is the result of a “lego of 21 aggregated companies”, and enables us to expand the field of possibilities not only by pushing back the limits of additive manufacturing by imagining neo-materials based on “revolutionary combinations of inputs”, but also by widening the scope of activities to other fields such as welding, foundry, etc...

Thanks to new encryption technologies, the “Nation Prod View” also enables complete traceability of manufactured parts from design to order, with “ AID-mandated inspectors acting as technical gendarmes”, while a number of SMEs are also part of the process, such as Olnica and its lantana capsules capable of being integrated into the coating of parts: “this brain adapted to small parts enables automated configuration management ” by automating the recording of their inputs and outputs.

The Frencg AID is of course also working on high-intensity issues, such as the development of war damage repair kits. The agency is also working with its partners in the European Defense Agency on a laboratory project for new combat materials.

While the culture of innovation requires a certain number of adjustments on the institutional side, it is, on the contrary, part of the DNA of manufacturers. This is particularly true of Airbus, which, as François Boche pointed out, “ must constantly demonstrate innovation in both the civil aviation sector (decarbonization; hydrogen engines; lower fuel consumption; etc.) and the military sector (NG engine for the MRTT; rotary-wing drones on board frigates; swarms of drones dropped by A400Ms; kit for transforming the A400M into a water bomber; etc.) ”.

Vincent Gicquel stressed, however, that in the current context, innovation was all the more “the driving force and guarantor of sovereignty ”. Hence Thales’ approach of adapting to the high-intensity context by basing its innovation strategy on the following tripod:

1. foresight workshops to analyze the Defense Technological and Industrial Base with the help of geostrategic and defense experts, etc;

2. open innovation, bringing together start-ups, SMEs, and scientific and academic interest groups to work towards the same innovative goal;

3. corporate culture, with Thales investing over €1 billion in R&D and employing 27,000 people - including 3,000 researchers - in this sector.

For Thales' Director of Innovation, disruptive innovation can be contractual: “Ravel, Maestro, Balzac, Pasco and Océan are support contracts based on a supply chain adaptable to high intensity ”, he emphasized.

High-intensity means disruption of the supply chain, and here again, innovation is useful to be able to operate in a downgraded or failure mode: both the armed forces and manufacturers are of course looking into this question of the sustainability of “ low-tech maintenance ”, as well as cyber vulnerability and/or lack of resources.

The AID and the French armed forces have been working with obsolescence management specialist OBSAN since 2018, in order to be able to find missing materials or parts quickly: “two new microchip production plants in the Netherlands and Texas”, for example, could supplement imports from Taiwan in the event of conflict with China, while “a reprocessing chain for materials needed for military MRO ” is also being developed in France and other countries⁽⁵⁾.

Footnotes

⁽¹⁾ General (2S) Jean-Marc Laurent

⁽²⁾ During the Q&A session closing the discussion.

⁽³⁾ Editor's note: TRL stands for “Technology Readiness Level”, i.e. the level of maturity of a technology: level 5 is the level preceding the production of a prototype (see, for example, https://acqnotes.com/acqnote/tasks/technology-readiness-level).

⁽⁴⁾ Editor's note: a first HAPPI platform was developed and launched by CEAM in 2018: it was then presented as follows: “ thanks to the HAPPI platform, developed by the CEAM, the Air Force has launched an approach to accompany, advise and support all airmen in their operational innovation projects: method and bringing together men and women will increase efficiency and responsiveness in the service of the forces." Then, a few years later, the joint hAPPI platform (with a lower-case h was described in the 2022 DROID as follows: “hAPPI, which stands for ‘AccomPagner les Projets Innovants’, went live in March 2022. The tool capitalizes on four years of experimentation within the Air and Space Force “.
See DROID for “Document de référence de l'orientation de l'innovation de défense :
https://www.defense.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/aid/DrOID-2022.pdf.

⁽⁵⁾ Details provided by Alain Christien during the Q&A session.

Photo © anelb.com, 2024