Engineering Luxury: Streamlining the Private Jet Refurb Process
Duncan Aviation has partnered with Razorleaf to automate their Product Data List (PDL) process for refurbishing aircraft, allowing their engineering teams to focus more on the "true work of art," while maintaining strict FAA safety standards.
With custom, hand-sewn seats, nautical window accents and yacht-inspired hardwood flooring, transforming a commercial or private business jet into a personal design statement is a true work of art.
From new external paint schemes to refurbished cabins and cockpits to full maintenance, Duncan Aviation provides nose-to-tail services for global private aircraft such as the Gulfstream V jet pictured above. [All images courtesy of Duncan Aviation.]
Yet behind the art is a digital vision of how engineering can be executed with purpose and precision. The streamlined, flowing lines of a surface counter and ergonomic interior space created from an artist's stylus pen must be matched with data that moves easily and accurately from digital rendering to computer-aided design (CAD) to enterprise resource planning (ERP), to generating the project files, and getting that information to production.
Each department, from upholstery to electrical to mechanical engineering, needs to be in sync. With digitally transferable project definitions and requirements, teams stay on the same page. Everyone operates from the same designs and methods, with roles and best practices clearly understood. This delivers meaningful time and cost savings for Duncan Aviation and its customers.
Duncan Aviation has a significant presence in American aircraft sales, airframe and engine maintenance, and painting, parts, and engineering services for commercial and private business jets. In fact, it is the largest privately-owned business in its field. There are three major maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facilities located in Michigan, Nebraska and Utah, plus regional shops and mobile teams that travel worldwide to help customers get their planes back in the skies.
Custom transformation of a commercial or private business jet into a personal design statement is an important aspect of the client services offered at Duncan Aviation.
"We are a one-stop shop," says Aaron Lane, Duncan Aviation's Alterations Planning Team/ Certification Coordinator/ PDM Administrator, located in Lincoln, Nebraska. "We do everything but build planes from scratch. Duncan Aviation is an innovative company, always embracing new technologies, new ways of doing and thinking about business. Our major facilities provide nose-to-tail services for global private aircraft, including Embraer, Gulfstream, Textron, Dassault, Learjet, and others. Every imaginable repair and upgrade is done."
Art meets engineering, cabin to cockpit
One group at Duncan Aviation with a special creative charter is Engineering and Certification. Here, teams primarily deal with customer-driven modifications to cabins and cockpits. These modifications reflect broader technology trends, replacing older dial-and-gauge displays with sleek glass touchscreen controls in the cockpit, to modernizing lighting and sound systems. Increasingly, they also include connectivity upgrades, such as Starlink or Gogo, enabling personal calls and Teams meetings in the air -- just like at home or in the office.
The jewels of upgrades at Duncan Aviation, these refurbishing projects transform each aircraft's interior into a one-of-a-kind work of art, a personalized living and travel space in the sky.
One such project involved a Gulfstream V, a high-speed, high-altitude, long-range business jet. For this top-tier aircraft, the owner wanted updated, two-tone seats as the centerpiece of the design -- much like a fine-tailored suit.
Many Duncan Aviation customers choose to introduce the latest in high-definition screens, which are then integrated into the refurbished interior as hide-aways.
The Duncan Aviation design team collaborated with designers at BorromeodeSilva. The "undeniably Italian: company partnered with the Duncan customer to create a look featuring updated seating, windows, surfaces and floors, a remodeled bathroom, and more.
Following a yacht theme, BorromeodeSilva reenvisioned the interior with porthole windows and deck-grade wood flooring. Every element complemented the green and almond-gold accents of the seating, with a full refresh of surfaces and cabinetry. Soon, BorromeodeSilva's interior design work would move from digital renderings to the engineering side of the 3D CAD and ERP software that Duncan Aviation teams use to build the exacting technical data needed for production of the interior.
That data serves as both instructions for Duncan Aviation's craftspeople in upholstery, cabinetry, and other disciplines, and as construction and safety validation for the FAA, as well as most other civil aviation authorities around the world, depending on the aircraft's country of registration.
"There are very stringent rules for safety of the aircraft," says Lane. "It's our job in Engineering and Certification to understand what those rules are, design to those rules, inspect the product regularly, and guarantee that design and outcome match."
Stylish, high-function, laminated cabinets and new flooring are popular features as well.
"So, if you say, 'I want to put a 10-inch monitor here along the side-wall,' you have to prove that mount can handle the weight and flight forces, that the power requirements are met, and then produce installation and service documentation, should they be needed," said Lane.
Connecting the Workflow: ERP, PDL and MDL
A customer's projects begin in Duncan Aviation's ERP system. Customers begin a dialog with sales personnel and eventually a quote is generated. That quote is shared with the customer using Duncan Aviation's customer portal, which is connected to the ERP system. The quote is accessible to the engineering and certification teams through the ERP. This quote becomes the foundation of the projects that are set up in Duncan Aviation's Aras Innovator PLM. Duncan Aviation has set up APIs (application program interfaces) between the two systems so that they share information and are in sync.
"The official work scope generated by our ERP system is the document that everyone in Duncan Aviation then uses," says Lane. "We take that information and translate it into engineering tasks. The departments meet around it and nail down the interrelated factors that arise from the choices made by the customer.
"For instance, a new monitor may be called for. But that might take a wiring diagram and a structural installation drawing," says Lane. "It might require a structural analysis report, or Instructions for Continued Airworthiness for service purposes. One modification can generate multiple engineering assignments."
Projects are created in ARAS Innovator. Automated templates developed by Razorleaf organize and speed data entry for teams serving engineering, electrical, production, and other departments.
Using ARAS Innovator as a CAD authoring and digital-enterprise platform fulfills much of what Duncan Aviation needs for product creation, document generation, and tracking. The team uses just what they need from the end-to-end suite of ARAS solutions.
One key element is the Project Data List (PDL). The PDL holds all the parts and documents that might originate from the ERP sales and project scoping process. Everything that is going to be used and certified is present. These items, plans, design data, analyses, and reports become a Master Data List (MDL) that comprise their Technical Data Package (TDP). It's the final TDP that gets handed to the customer and regulatory agency.
Target: Automating the PDL
In the past, creating a PDL was a long and tiring manual process. Each element of the project had to be entered by hand, question fields answered per item, and identification numbers assigned. Then repeated. Those in Engineering and Certification essentially captured the whole scope of the project and tabbed it. The process was slow, frustrating, and not the best use of engineering labor.
One common modification is an upgrade of the cockpit from historic gauges to digital screens.
This is where Duncan Aviation sought expert help. ARAS recommended considering Razorleaf, an ARAS partner that specializes in PLM implementation and middleware development that bridges digital domains -- from CAD and ERP to Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) and beyond. Razorleaf developed the underlying code and logic, automating Duncan Aviation's workflow through "templatized" pathways that capture known project requirements and streamline data entry within the PDL.
"We got the coding project going with Razorleaf and it went quickly," says Lane. "They knew ARAS software and understood how to custom automate it for our specific purposes. Very impressive."
"Today, 99 percent of our documents and drawings have templates. It's where the engineers start off. The templates are found via the PDL generator tab. We have everything from CAD documents, made assessable there, to flammability test plans and reports, analyses, instructions, and meta-data, all generated now in timesaving batches."
The upper sidewalls of the cabin are vinyl-wrapped and offer the appearance of a straight grain, light oak veneer.
"In fact, time-savings wise, our productivity in managing the scope of projects has conservatively improved by 75 percent. Plus, add to that, everyone at Duncan Aviation has speedy access to the project data. This includes procurement, production, quality, sales, and management. The PDL is the source for everyone."
Duncan Aviation sees its future
Having achieved its primary goals of increasing agility and streamlining work-scope throughput, Duncan Aviation is set to expand its digital interconnections and activate more of the capabilities built into its newly coded system. Recent enhancements include change orders and engineering orders and requests.
The next phase will target the Bill of Materials (BOM), ease-of-procurement, and overall workload and time management. With support from Razorleaf, these efforts are underway and will reduce redundant system interactions, and more. Departments will have real-time visibility across multiple projects and the many different aircraft continually being refurbished.
Gulfstream V. From digital rendering to completed interior.
"We want to automate how the PDL within Aras Innovator interacts with our separate ERP software, and basically reduce human involvement, when appropriate," says Lane. "This extends to workflow management. The workflows by themselves have greatly enhanced our work environment. That's on our side of things."
"On the other side, the aircraft industry as a whole generates a tremendous amount of paper for worldwide regulatory agencies," he notes. "It's a long-term goal of ours to get Aras Innovator configured enough to convince the FAA that they don't need paper copies from us. Digitization and automation will help everyone."
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