Aerospace

Airplane Piston Engine

Background

The customer is a Western European company that is one of the largest producers of gasoline aircraft engines in the world and has an excellent reputation. The customer developed and manufactures four-stroke and two-stroke models of piston engines for ultralight aircraft, light aircraft and unmanned aerial vehicles.

The Challenge

The airplane piston engines require high levels of reliability which stem from solid engineering, well trained technicians and clear service and support processes and procedures. These challenges were coupled with a global spread as these engines are located around the world and in many cases, in remote locations.

Newer models of the motors are more sophisticated. While in the past, the motors were 99% mechanics, today it is combination of mechanics and electronics leading to more complex and demanding training and servicing. Additionally, the probability of wrong servicing is getting higher and therefore the old way of training and service are not suitable for today’s engines. The old approach of servicing the engines by referencing heavy service manuals of PDF files was becoming inefficient and increased the risk of poor servicing the engines and could lead to lower satisfaction from customers.

The Solution: LLS Frontline

LLS worked with the engine company to improve and replace outdated methods for training and servicing these engines.

LLS created a 3D model of the physical motor called a 3DM. The 3DM or “digital twin” is a highly accurate, interactive 3D model of the original engine. The 3DM models can be seen on screens, mobile devices or VR headsets, allowing for new training simulations.

By using digital twins the customer was able to make significant improvements to their training:

Trainees could understand the details of the motor in a much shorter timeframe.
By using the X-Ray mode, the trainees had a much deeper understanding of the principals of operations.
Through interactions with the 3D models, the trainees were able to exercise all the procedures without the need of an actual machine allowing the training program to experience a true force multiplier.
Using analytics built in to the training software, the customer was able to evaluate the trainee’s knowledge level, identify gaps and optimize.
The customer saved a significant amount of money by reducing the total capital expenses and cutting the cost of technical writing.