How Rolls Royce uses Big Data?
Major Big Data goals, outcomes, and impact
In an industry where failures & mistakes cost billions & invaluable lives, Rolls Royce has embraced Big Data focussing on customer-centricity & improving operational efficiencies. Their R2 Lab established 3 years back, brings together global expertise to tap on 30+ years of data-led services & innovation leveraging DevOps principles.
Faced with increasing technological shifts, Rolls Royce is focussing on innovation strategy in the aerospace industry. Strategy execution is enabled by leveraging Big Data analytics, Data Engineering, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, IoT throughout the value chain to identify areas where data insights could help gain efficiencies. Process innovation and optimization span end-to-end customer experience starting with the engine design to offering customer-centric after-sales service and the use of robotics for maintenance.
Rolls Royce’s objectives are to help their customers realize value, delight them by providing swift customer service, lowering customer costs, improving customer profitability, and ultimately yielding higher customer satisfaction. Rolls Royce has embraced a customer-centric mindset evolving from a pure jet engine manufacturing company. It has accelerated its digital transformation by establishing new business operating models and espousing client care philosophy.
Major areas of Big Data
- Design: Each jet engine simulation is visualized to determine good/bad design. Rolls Royce aspires to visualize products where service data (as flown) can be combined with simulation data (as designed) to gain a better understanding.
- Manufacturing: IoT (Internet of Things) based solutions are embedded across its product lines & manufacturing facilities. Manufacturing data is aggregated & analyzed on components to monitor & measure quality. Insights are fed right into the design & enablement of lean manufacturing.
- After-sales support: With the goal to minimize airline disruptions, maintenance schedules are identified ahead of time. Engineers in operational service centers get real-time data gathered from hundreds of sensors fitted on engines & propulsion systems. In-flight analytics transmit highlights to the ground for further analysis by engineers on anomalies. Engineers identify factors that may lead to engine maintenance & suggest a corrective course of action, sometimes involving human intervention, mitigation, or dispatching engineering teams. Insights gathered are fed back to design. Rolls Royce expects computers to carry out the intervention themselves & predict the likelihood of problems.
Competitive Analysis
The aviation industry’s most valuable resource is not oil but data! Playing in the same space are GE Aviation (~52% share), Pratt & Winney (P&W ~26% share) with the same mission as Rolls Royce (~18% share) to improve operational efficiencies, reduce disruption, increase client revenue & shift preventative maintenance from schedule-based to condition-based.
- GE has partnered with Qantas to provide FlightPluse digital tool to pilots enabling fuel analytics. GE offers a PredIx platform for fleet & fuel management & flight efficiency services.
- P&W partners with IBM to collect in-flight analytics from their health management solution that flows from aircraft to airline to P&W, in addition, to directly to P&W from in-flight. P&W offers a global engine connectivity service to manage the client’s data needs leading to effective troubleshooting. They also offer a pay-by-hour maintenance program as compared to Rolls Royce’s mission to have computers take care of most of the routine maintenance.
- GE & P&W partnered to form Engine Alliance & share data insights on some engines. Rolls Royce has an in-house data lab vs its peers in a partnership model.
References:
- Forbes article https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2015/06/01/how-big-data-drives-success-at-rolls-royce/?sh=37019d111d69
- Rolls Royce stores — video on Big Data use
https://www.rolls-royce.com/media/our-stories/insights - GE Aviation Blog https://www.geaviation.com
- https://prattwhitney.com/
- P&W blog https://www.pwc.ca/en/airtime-blog/articles/expert-talk/global-connectivity-makes-engine-health-data-more-accessible
