Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and operational intelligence centric applications firm IFS (Industrial and Financial Systems) has acquired Mxi Technologies Ltd, a provider of integrated and intelligent IoT-aligned maintenance management software for the aviation industry.
Maintenance, Repair & Overhaul (MRO)
Mxi serves defense and commercial operators, third-party Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) companies and Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) with software, support and services.
The firm’s names means ‘maintenance by information’… but the company appears to somewhat modestly not capitalize its letter I for information.
Mxi’s Maintenix software suite is designed to help aviation organisations maximize the revenue potential of their aviation assets through standard lean, and predictive IoT-centric maintenance.
Mxi’s global footprint of customers ranges from emerging and mid-sized organizations to the largest global aviation enterprises, many of whom have multi-site deployments that scale to several thousand users.
Airline selection pack
The company’s customer base includes: Southwest Airlines, Air France, KLM, Qantas, China Airlines, LATAM, Icelandair, NetJets, Boeing, BAE Systems, Saab, Pratt & Whitney and several of the world’s air forces.
Alastair Sorbie, IFS President & CEO told Internet of Business that this acquisition will see his firm continue to invest in and market both the Mxi Maintenix and IFS Applications solutions for customers who want a so-called point solution i.e. one that solves a particular problem without necessarily taking into account the full scope of business needs.
But, says Sorbie, he also believes that an end-to-end integrated solution will be attractive to many companies in the sector.
As AviationWeek has already reported in regard to IoT maintenance for aviation, “The Internet of Things is poised to make the aftermarket more precise by connecting dots as never before. It could be the catalyst to eliminate unscheduled maintenance. It will definitely move the MRO industry toward being more proactive instead of reactive. Why? Because all of the elements are in place.”
Diogenis Papiomytis, director of aerospace & defense at industry analyst house Frost & Sullivan thinks that the acquisition of Mxi Technologies by IFS “makes strong commercial sense” — as the two companies have complementary capabilities and products targeting commercial and military aviation organizations.
“The global scale of IFS operations, as well as its innovative culture, extensive business development, and R&D resources will allow Mxi to grow its business and implement large scale projects without compromising on customer service or product development timeframes. Furthermore, the Maintenix product and Mxi’s growing aviation and defense customer base will add substantial value to the IFS product portfolio and assist in expanding its reach beyond the already strong IFS Aviation & Defense credentials,” saaid Papiomytis.
Ticket to ride on IoT wings
The potential deployment scope for IoT maintenance applications across the hugely complex aviation industry is undeniably huge.
Big Data and IoT will revolutionize the transportation industry in the coming years. As we enter an age of IoT empowered aircraft and automated self-driving cars an incredible amount of information will be generated by all manner of IoT devices and analyzing and interpreting actionable insights from this massive amount of data will be the challenge of successful companies.
According to Dataiku (a firm that develops Dataiku Data Science Studio, an advanced analytics software solution), “The only way to accomplish [the IoT transportation revolution] is through the introduction of predictive analytics and machine learning to constantly observe the endless numbers of data points and identify evolving patterns.”
In essence, the machine learns how to correlate related activities and score those associations based upon intelligent algorithms. When combined with data analytics in the context of IoT, machine learning automation uncovers trends and relationships in data sets far too complex or large for a human to deal with. What’s more, its accuracy increases with use courtesy of adaptive algorithms.
Further reading
An excellent paper entitled Internet of Things in Commercial Aviation written by WindRiver is available here for further reading on this topic.
