Digitalizing the MRO process: Main Steps and Lesson Learned

Improving processes in a company starts from a deep knowledge of the current context, of the needs of improvement and of the objectives to be satisfied. Sometimes, traditional processes can benefits from a techno-organizational innovation that change the way of work introducing new routines and solutions. A kind of business process not widely explored is the Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) that is performed using practice linked with the story of components involved. The new available technologies and the need for competitiveness can lead to transform and innovate this kind of process introducing changes in organizational and technological aspects. This paper aims to describe the experience of innovation in the flow of activities and information of the MRO process of aeronautical components. It is based on an action research involving University’s researchers and industrial engineers for a period of one year. The developed solutions, the applied approach together with benefits and expected impacts are described in the paper for leading future activities in the managerial and academia fields.