My first article for Aircraft IT MRO (volume 2 issue 1, February-March 2013) ‘What should a CIO think about?’ addressed technology and business alignment and the difference between talking about it and showing people how to do it. For Aircraft IT MRO volume 3 issue 2, May-June 2014, my article ‘Also a business process’ explained the structuring and benefits of co-creation communities to drive innovation. This third article is about simplicity of intent and I offer one example (see below) that covers most of the topic. The illustration has been created as a “checklist template” of my objectives when I joined Air Works in 2012. Checklist which aviation domain has given to all other domains, still is one of the most successful tool for execution success is simplest and humblest of techniques. First introduced decades ago by U.S. Air force, checklists have enabled pilots to fly aircraft of mindboggling sophistication. I have just aligned this simple technique to my domain of computational science and its promise to my organization Air Works. I believe that when you make clear commitment, it stimulates you, to generate the energy you need, to motivate you to aspire to the level that you have set as your objective, in-spite of ambiguities and constraints all over the playground. One can consider this as a transformation template and it has worked for me in delivering change thru technology what I wanted to bring to Air Works. From a selfish enterprise IT perspective it has rewarded me (representing the technology and engineering community of Air Works) not only within Air Works family but has been appreciated by global technology community. Some emblems of appreciation are awards like prestigious CIO 100 etc. and as late as March, 2015 – NetApp Best Innovation in Cloud Computing.

1. M
Y FIRST ARTICLE for Aircraft IT MRO
(volume 2 issue 1, February-March 2013)
‘What should a CIO think about?’ addressed
technology and business alignment and the difference
between talking about it and showing people how to
do it. For Aircraft IT MRO volume 3 issue 2, May-June
2014, my article ‘Also a business process’ explained the
structuring and benefits of co-creation communities to
drive innovation. This third article is about simplicity of
intent and I offer one example (see below) that covers
most of the topic. The illustration has been created as
a check-list of my objectives when I joined Air Works
in 2012. I believe that when you make that kind of
clear commitment, it is likely to generate the energy
needed, to motivate you to aspire to the level that you
have set as your objective. One can consider this as a
transformation template and it has worked for me in
delivering what I wanted to bring to Air Works.
For all that a plan like this involves multiple projects
and actions; the intent expressed is a very simple one –
to use IT to improve the effectiveness of the business.
However, before I go into details about how the
changes in Air Works have been achieved, I should first
tell readers a little about the business.
THE BUSINESS OF AIR WORKS
Air Works is a global company established 1951 and is
a tightly knit federation of entrepreneur led businesses.
The company is the leading and the largest MRO
business in India and the only EASA certified business
aviation MRO in the country – it is India’s first EASA
Certified Airline MRO. The business undertakes
avionic retrofits and upgrades through Scandinavian
MRO technology innovations
Ravinder Pal Singh, Global Chief Information and Technology Officer, Air Works India explains how a major
MRO provider met technology challenges and took control of its own IT destiny.
22 | CASE STUDY: AIRWORKS | AIRCRAFT IT MRO | APRIL/MAY 2015
INTENT AS AT 2012
2012 (Attain minimum maturity to transform)
• Understand business goals (IT structure);
• Evaluate IT & Business adoption maturity (People;
Technology; Partners);
• Stabilize or retire IT elements (initial point for
successful kick-start of transformation)
2013 (Execution)
• Infrastructure as a service (IT spend & finance aligned);
• People aligned applications (Air Works – Search; its own
App Market; (its Employee Portal);
• 25% process automation (as-is ERP as enterprise data
layer with smart apps/tech. Or new ERP).
2014 (Establish change)
• Continuous improvement on IT Infrastructure running
(Optimize);
• 100% digitization of content (internal & allowed –
Compliance & IT aligned);
• Business-led further process automation (Functions –
few OEMs & IT aligned);
• Digitization of customer relationship & pre-sales (Pitch
to customer satisfaction).
2015
• My cannibalization & succession;
• 50% self-serviced IT;
• Internationalized – Global IT;
• Visible integration of customers + assets.
Air Works Hangar

2. Avionics, aircraft painting and refinishing in Europe
and India, and aircraft management services in the
Middle East, West Africa and India through Empire
Aviation. Air Works is qualified to maintain more than
fifty aircraft types in hangars across India, Europe and
the Middle East, dealing with corporate jets and line
maintenance for airline jets.
In the last three or four years the company has
made some very impressive changes, so that today it
is involved with avionics, painting and maintenance
but also with helping people to buy and sell aircraft
and provide services. Essentially Air Works has been
transformed from a maintenance company to an
asset management business; protecting the assets of
customers.
IT AS MORE THAN AN ENABLER
My own background is in IT as a computer science
engineer rather than specifically an aviation expert
but my objective is to bring about a convergence
of computer science with aviation engineering. To
that end, my greatest efforts have been invested in
understanding aviation engineering. In this article, I
particularly want to cover growth and technology, and,
to a limited extent, change and constraints: to tell the
story of how technology can really drive business.
Probably the best demonstration of how this process
has succeeded is that, at Air Works, our recent
growth has been non-linear. We have enjoyed double
digit, exponential growth without commensurately
increasing resources such as the workforce: we have
managed to increase capacity and productivity while at
the same time increasing revenues and profit margins.
All this has been achieved using technology: not as
an enabler but as a strategic driver for the business. In
pursuit of these changes, we have accomplished some
simple things using low cost but effective technology.
As we see it, technology is the glue that brings
together the various strands of our business and a
platform on which we can develop the business that
we want. Our problem is not one of scale, Air Works
is still a small company, but one of complexity because
we have 96 different types of aircraft in our database.
Across our hangars around the world, there will be 30
to 40 different types of aircraft being worked on at any
given time. So anything that can bring some standard
definitions and processes to that business will be
welcome and valuable.
STANDARDS THAT WE CAN USE RIGHT NOW
However, while we talk about data standards in
aviation globally, when we look around we can see that
it’s not really happening in any of the specific places
or instances where standards could be useful. So the
question arises, should we wait for standards to arrive
globally or should we just get on and do it in our
own businesses? We decided to do just that and have
secured our own standards with a patent that has now
been approved. In fact, we will be launching that side
of the business as a separate company next year but
the thing that matters is that we have actually solved
the problem of standards within our own business. We
have connected right from the start of the process to
our standards for financial accounting to accommodate
taking care of 96 different types of aircraft with only
the exception of LRUs (line replaceable units) which
I know a lot of readers will understand. This program
has been independent of ERP or software vendors,
which is why we have patented it.
During the time in question, our business has grown
“…whilewetalkaboutdatastandards
inaviationglobally,whenwelook
aroundwecanseethatit’snotreally
happeninginanyofthespecificplaces
orinstanceswherestandardscouldbe
useful.”
APRIL/MAY 2015 | AIRCRAFT IT MRO | CASE STUDY: AIRWORKS | 23
Air Works Technicians

3. nearly thirty times larger and we have been recognized
by Forbes as one of ‘12 Hidden Gems’ of the corporate
world. There was a time three and a half years ago
when there was little interest to invest in Air Works;
today, our problem is that many want to invest in
the business and our pleasant challenge is to evaluate
which one would create the right fit. We have achieved
a pattern of remarkable growth through building
a range of capabilities covering interiors, painting,
airline MRO, component overhaul, after-market
services, selling, buying, brokerage... but now we are
transforming Air Works into an asset management or
aircraft management services business.
DRIVEN BY IT
A lot of experienced people talk about IT as an enabler
whereas, if one considers most industries, with the
exceptions of agriculture in Asia and aviation, every
other industry is driven by information technology
rather than simply enabling some of the processes used
in the sector. In this context we aren’t talking about IT
as computers and servers but as computing science,
whether it is applied to gather intelligence, to support
a decision, to use cloud technology for scalable growth
or for a cost effective strategy to increase productivity
or growth.
One thing that I have realized about aviation during
my initial years in the sector is that we need to decide
whether it’s fair to rely only to OEMs and others to
establish standards and processes, and then follow
them or should we do something different. In this, I
have looked to a phenomenon which happens in the IT
world where even a young person can develop an idea
and turn that into a multi-million dollar business in a
few years. I don’t believe that only the biggest OEMs
can attract the best talent in Europe and the US and I
do believe that, by developing your own solution and
executing it within your own business environment,
“Inordertoprovideadynamicenvironmentforprojectmanagement,Ibreakprojects
into90dayperiodssothattheboardcanhaveaclearlydefinedscheduleagainst
whichtomonitorandjudgeprogressandonwhichtobasetheirowndecisions…”
24 | CASE STUDY: AIRWORKS | AIRCRAFT IT MRO | APRIL/MAY 2015

4. you will build strong credibility and
can find good quality partners such
as software vendors with whom you
have co-created; and that you can
increase their market share as well
as increase your own business: but
it’s a tough journey.
When you grow at a rapid rate
starting from a low point, one of the
main indicators of success in depth
is whether you are truly managing
digitization; otherwise you’ll just
talk about it. In order to provide a
dynamic environment for project
management, I break projects into
90 day periods so that the board
can have a clearly defined schedule
against which to monitor and judge
progress and on which to base their
own decisions about support and
funding for the project which, in
turn, protects shareholder value.
MARKS OF PROGRESS AND
BUSINESS IMPROVEMENT
The bottom line is that if your
business is growing and if you
claim that you are automating and
increasing productivity within
or outside of the aircraft, your
IT portfolio of solutions should
increase and should increase
faster. If that is not happening,
something is terribly wrong. Air
Works has been recognized as one
of the CIO100 companies credited
with using technology to build the
business.
To some extent, three years ago
we found ourselves with products
and technology that were no longer
exactly aligned to our objectives.
However, there was no point in
getting rid of them so we still
tried to utilize what we had and in
that vein we have built a portfolio
including digitization and an app
market to offer our customers
visibility as to where their aircraft
is, who’s working on it, what are
the parts being used, how much
material and labor they have
consumed, what tasks are going to
be done, and so on… we offer our
customers apps to achieve all that.
But one thing we have learned
from that experience is that, if
anyone tells you that it takes even
eight months (leave alone three,
four or five years) to implement
ERP pay no attention to them.
There are two matters to note. First,
the eco-system is changing rapidly:
second, Google will manage to get
its next Android system working
in three months. There just isn’t
time to explore different or exotic
methodologies: if you have a
features list and a community of
developers in your organization
(see May-June 2014 Air Works
article) that’s all you require to
develop whatever solutions you
need. The process should be results
orientated and it should be fast.
However you do things (fast or
slow) there will be mistakes, but
don’t wait until the next version
comes and you have completed
your customizations in any of the
software and then it hits you that
things were not necessarily right.
For example, take the most
complex development, Cloud,
which we use for everything at Air
Works. We have created Cloud
for Air Works on our terms not
on Google’s terms and not on
SaaS (Software as a Service) terms
dictated by vendors or suppliers:
and that is very important.
Ultimately our information resides
in a place that we control which
is good because, wherever the
information resides, regulatory
responsibility and accountability
will always reside with us.
All of this has been built in less
than two years and, while not
everything might be perfect, at Air
Works it’s all there and everything
has a business case which is defined
by the 90 day project window (see
above) and what value the project
will bring to the business. In taking
control of our own IT environment
on our own terms and with our
own priorities, we feel that we have
taken a firmer control on the future
direction and development of our
business. That is using IT to drive
and build the business and we have
found that a very empowering
process.
Author
RAVINDER PAL SINGH
GLOBAL CHIEF INFORMATION AND
TECHNOLOGY OFFICER AT AIR WORKS
Ravi is transforming
current IT and creating
its future avatar which
is aligned to Air Work’s
vision and its various
business goals. He has lived and
worked on three continents and
his global experience covers broad
disciplines ranging from strategy
to execution. In the recent past
he has been associated with
a leader in technology and a
‘big 4’ management consulting
firm to help their Fortune 100
customers and government
institutions in IT transformation. He
is a child rights activist, practices
yoga, runs marathons and does
mountaineering. Ravi is also a
holder, in his personal capacity, of
several technology patents.
About
AIR WORKS
Air Works is India’s largest
independent aviation MRO and
India’s first EASA certified MRO. The
company is certified to maintain
96 different types of aircraft –
ranging from small, single engine
machines to turboprops plus B737s
and A320s. Air Works includes Air
Livery, UK which is Europe’s leading
independent aircraft painting and
re-finishing company and Empire
Aviation Group, Dubai which is
the Middle East’s largest aircraft
management services company.
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