Research Overview

In recent years, the global commercial aerospace maintenance, repair, and operations (MRO) digitization market has registered rising digital solution adoption. With high entry barriers and a small profit margin, the industry is adapting and innovating to survive and thrive amid the COVID-19 pandemic. MRO firms and supporting supply chains have adapted to business process changes and adopted digital technologies to keep themselves agile.

Several MRO companies are working on essential action items such as removing inefficiencies, becoming digital enterprises and teams, increasing customer visibility with more cloud adoption, and enhancing focus on data security, blockchain, virtual agents, industrial internet of things (IIoT), automation, contactless systems, and digital and paperless operations.

Next-generation technology is likely to be the critical differentiator for MRO service providers to maintain the leading edge over competitors in the future rather than labor cost arbitrage, access to parts, licensing, and intellectual property rights alone. While low cost, safety, reliability, and turnaround time (TAT) will remain the key performance indices (KPIs) of MRO firms, achieving these KPIs will be different, mainly through digital transformation and analytics. Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) increasingly embed analytics into airlines and MRO operations to gain an edge over in-house airline MROs and independent MRO service providers in the aftermarket. Airline engineering companies and independent MRO enterprises need to evaluate their current status and understand the implications of the industry changes to prepare for the future, especially in terms of the technological roadmap for their MRO functions.