Since 2020, Joël Serres and his team at Airbus have transformed their asset management practice. The traditional approach of managing assets is focused on maintenance activities and often involves working on assets individually. The new approach is asset management, taking into account the entire lifecycle of the asset and adopting a long-term perspective on the health and value of the asset. 

This new approach also recognized that asset management could be a key to realizing broader corporate targets such as financial performance and sustainability.

This transformation is not without challenges, and two stand out for Serres: the need to align teams on a single decision making process and asset management strategy, and the increasing complexity of the asset management tools, operations, and data.

Complexity emerges when there are a variety of tools, methods, and processes that often prevent efficient decision-making and work against cross-company alignment. What’s more, asset managers rely heavily on their many years of experience to make the best asset management decisions for the company. Airbus estimates that 80% of asset management decisions are based on experience, with just 20% being data driven decisions. With a more efficient asset management practice, however, Serres was sure they could reverse this ratio and have their expert asset management stakeholders leverage data for 80% of their asset management decisions.

Addressing these challenges meant setting up an asset manager role to lead the transformation journey and the adoption of digital tools. In another hand, to put in place a new methodology supported by a technology with simulation capabilities that go beyond managing or forecasting the future by mirroring the past. 

Airbus used Cosmo Tech Digital Twin Simulation solution to help them define the right lifecycle strategy for six riveting machines, key assets in European aircraft production, in one of their final assembly plants in France.

The Role of Data: Airbus knew that they would need data and there were some initial concerns that it would take too long to marshall the relevant data. “I was afraid at the beginning,” Serres said, “But it only took us four to six weeks to gather and clarify all of the data that we needed.”

Another surprise was which data would be the most critical for making the best decisions. Serres continued, “I was thinking at the beginning that we would have a problem around technical data but it was not the case. We were surprised because the critical data was not what was expected, with sensitivity on the cost rather than on some technical aspects”.

Michel Morvan adds, “As Cosmo Tech technology involves modeling processes, it does not require a lot of data from the past as is the case with other tools based on machine learning. Simulating the sensitivity of some data, can also help to find the critical data needed to solve the problem, as it did in this case at Airbus.” 

A Path to a 15% TOTEX Reduction: The transformation in Airbus’ asset management strategy is aimed at delivering both corporate alignment and, in time, cost optimizations for the organization, too. Thanks to Simulation Digital Twin, Airbus on this first use case were able to identify an asset management replacement strategy that had the potential to optimize a significant portion of the operational and capital expenditures over the long term.

“The conclusion was clear for me that, with this approach, we see a potential 15% reduction of our total costs,” Serres said. 

The simulation technology generated the plans that Airbus could implement to set themselves on a path to such reductions. While not yet realized, the alignment is real and the organization has the potential to hit targets that were unthinkable with existing and traditional approaches to manage assets.