In the aviation industry, every minute of downtime due to equipment failure significantly impacts operations. While sometimes inevitable, flight delays are nevertheless an inconvenience for both passengers and airlines. Statista estimates that flights delayed due to unscheduled maintenance will amount to $39 billion in 2035. However, there are ways for airlines to minimize the aircraft’s turnaround time. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, when the world’s busiest terminals were overwhelmed, servicing an aircraft upon arrival was the norm. This is where having the right tools to speed up turnaround time becomes critical. Mobile solutions that bring all the necessary information and transactions planeside and right to your crews are essential. In this way, maintenance teams can track detailed requests from work order creation, through sourcing and delivery, all the way to your aircraft.In the new normal situation there is an imperative to empower technicians and engineers with remote access to the necessary resources. Mobility and paperless have become an imperative. Progression of Work Orders Using pen and paper was the go-to way for assigning work orders in the past, and continues to be so even now, for those who have not yet embraced digitalization and the cloud. Work processes built around paper have been in place since the start of aviation.However, this method has some serious pain points. One, paper files are unwieldy – and it takes time to find, retrieve, and sort them. Additionally, they can be easily misplaced, damaged, or lost. Two, troubleshooting issues can be complicated when using paper-based logs and reports; data entry using a pen and paper can be hard to do in real-time. And details that are filed into the work order might have erroneous or unintelligible information. Although utilizing Excel spreadsheets makes work orders and records digital to a limited extent it does not lead to the automatic generation of work orders. Moreover, there are substantial limitations in tracking the progress of work orders in real time. Mark Martin, an industry expert, said cloud solutions and mobile devices, that can access data instantly, have eliminated the need to physically store and process data on-site. Therefore, nowadays, the prevalent way to create work orders is to use electronic task cards. Using mobile and cloud technology makes it easy for the maintenance team to create, track, complete, and analyze tasks in real-time, at any time, from anywhere. Using electronic task cards, maintenance managers can remotely assign crews to meet and work on inbound aircraft, giving them advanced visibility into incoming issues, scheduled tasks, and parts and tooling requirements. Effectively Plan Maintenance by Leveraging Digital Technology Choosing the right tools and systems to manage work orders is crucial to minimize out-of-service time and ensure that your fleet gets back in the air on time. Equipping your mechanics with the essential resources can surely impact their productivity. By utilizing electronic task cards and signatures, your business can speed up work by eliminating paper mess, as well as giving users clear visibility of their next steps. Furthermore, it reduces or eliminates the need for your crew to travel back and forth to the job site, allowing them to complete more work steps and increase their productivity. EmpowerMX is a world leader in providing intelligent paperless maintenance solutions for today’s aircraft. Its Line Manager module allows for effective control of both scheduled and unscheduled line operations. By utilizing Line Manager’s digital framework for assigning work and tracking progress, you will constantly be in the know of what is going on in your operation. Contact our experts today to learn more about how EmpowerMX can further maximize your mechanic’s productivity.