Lufthansa Technik and Undagrid Launch Global GSE 4.0 Project

After two years of worldwide research and an extensive tendering process, Lufthansa Technik and Undagrid announce their IoT strategic partnership for smart asset management. Every asset Lufthansa Technik owns or uses, can now be connected using Undagrid’s technology. It gives Lufthansa Technik real-time insights into its assets, allowing it to localize and allocate equipment anywhere on its premises. The two companies are very pleased to release this new, strategic partnership as part of its effort to expand the use of this technology in the aviation industry across the globe.

Digitization Lufthansa Technik’s Ground Support Equipment

Under the banner of ‘Industry 4.0’, Lufthansa Technik has recently turned toward digitization of its ground support equipment (GSE) to boost long-term competitiveness. Following its successful rollout of Paperless Maintenance, the company’s ‘GSE 4.0’ project focuses on increasing transparency in the requirements, usage, and availability of GSE. Establishing new processes for predicting and allocating materials will increase aircraft availability. From equipment and tools to service staff and coordinators: all will be networked together within GSE 4.0.

Saves time and money

Networked GSE saves time and money and speeds up the information exchange within Lufthansa Technik. The quality of work processes improvesthrough standardization, simplification, and predictive information makes them less susceptible to errors. Additionally, by making asset information such as maintenance history, work orders and certification dates more transparent, Lufthansa Technik expects to simplify its compliance processes.

Undagrid’s autonomous network

Undagrid offers comprehensive sensor and platform technologies that provide all the valuable insights Lufthansa Technik requires. The Undagrid sensors, communicating via an autonomous network, identify, locate and manage objects of all kinds. It allows tools and materials to be localized immediately, continuously monitoring their current conditions, and determining and predicting usage patterns. Undagrid’s mobile web application informs the service staff of pending tasks and allocates all assets, everywhere, at any time. Plus, the ATEX-certified sensors can be used in hazardous environments, like during aircraft maintenance operations and engineering.

GSE 4.0 Project

Undagrid’s proven, scalable technology is the optimal solution for Lufthansa Technik’s GSE 4.0 project. Lufthansa Technik had recently begun converting its logistics processes into event-based operations to improve customer satisfaction and gain competitive advantages. Time-consuming tasks like searching for available equipment and tools are now a thing of the past. Real-time access to relevant information like fuel levels, temperatures or equipment malfunctions help avert outages and errors. Lufthansa Technik can now predict which materials are ready to be used for specific jobs, like aircraft maintenance and handling. It offers end-to-end transparency for planning and auditing. Ultimately, this project will serve as a template for coordinating equipment across all Lufthansa Technik locations worldwide.

Location tracking

“With the help of ‘GSE 4.0’, location tracking is now possible at any time and in any place so that we can locate all networked GSE both outside and in the hangars. Undagrid helps us make ‘Industry 4.0’ really sustainable for maintenance, repair, and operations. They transformed shared, ambitious goals into a successful pilot, followed by a production rollout with thousands of sensors at Hamburg and Frankfurt, in just a couple of months. The system is expected to be up and running on more sites starting in August before spreading to other users”, says Lufthansa Technik’s Manager of Corporate Innovation, Gerrit Rexhausen.

“Meet high expectations”

Undagrid CEO Rolf van de Velde comments, "We are pleased to jointly launch the global GSE 4.0 project as Lufthansa Technik’s IoT partner. Our consolidated research, international implementation experience and user data have enabled us to create this optimized experience for Lufthansa Technik. We've become a leader in collecting, processing and analyzing information from asset sensors in the aviation industry. Our concept has scaled up into a complete enterprise solution with a mobile application, intuitive programming interfaces, and integration with major IT systems. The customer response has been great within Lufthansa Technik and beyond. We increasingly believe we have an opportunity to revolutionize the entire MRO and ground-handling business in the airline industry.”