all right welcome everyone to breakout room three let's give everyone about a minute or two
to to come in i think there's still some people in the main lobby before we get started
perfect i have received the green light so once again a warm welcome we have an action-packed 45
minute session ahead focusing on two distinct challenge statements coming from royce royce
my name is still johannes and i will be moderating the session today and ensure we stay on track
as we explore the opportunities in more detail in this particular room we will cover two challenge
statements royce royce is seeking scalable training solutions that sustain high confidence assembly
skill across multiple engine variants despite high turnover and equipment constraints
and the second challenge focuses on modular mro enabling non-linear engine handling so technicals
technicians sorry can handle specific components as needed rather than follow rigid disassembly lines
our speaker from royce royce will give a high level insight sharing regarding standard engine disassembly
today before diving into specifics of both challenge statements they have launched as part of this
innovation challenge to kick things off for royce royce it is my pleasure to introduce raj he is the
technology strategy lead for engine disassembly and reassembly at royce royce and leads the regional
aftermarket services and repair technology team in singapore he has spent over 11 years with royce royce
in singapore and during this period he has led multiple technology programs with regional ecosystem of
research centers like ntu artc to deploy in global mro basis and industrialize new aftermarket capability raj holds a
bachelor degree in aerospace engineering from singapore's ntu and he'll walk us through the operational needs and the
vision for royce royce's two challenge statements and a gentle reminder we'll have about 10 to 15 minutes
before the sharing before moving on to the q a section but if you do have any questions throughout the
segment please use the q a feature at the bottom and then at the end of raj's sharing i will enable
you to unmute yourselves as well to raise your questions with that raj the floor is yours
the floor is yours thank you so much johannes uh morning afternoon evening everyone um so i think uh
johannes gave a very flattering presentation introduction to me so thank you for that uh
before i dive into yep i think johannes covered quite a bit of this uh i look after a team of technology uh
introduction engineers within the mro world in rolls royce in singapore and i also look after the
technology strategy for engine disassembly and refurbishment i have been in rolls royce since october
2013 uh it's my first job i'm still here uh but it's definitely not my first role uh i have spent some
time in manufacturing i have then spent some time looking at bliss repair and i have also led a
joint program with rolls royce sazel and a star for advanced mro development it brings me great pleasure
to participate in this and uh this is the first time rolls royce is participating in it and we are
genuinely very excited we have uh done quite a bit of uh technology development and this is going to be
another challenge that fits into our long-term technology strategy so the way i will do this
presentation is uh first i will just quickly walk you guys through our standard engine disassembly steps
uh the reason for doing that is because both the problem statements are based on the standard engine
disassembly today so this uh introduction covers both the problem statements and then i will spend five
minutes on each of the problem statements to go into a bit more details uh i will have to apologize
that there are certain details we can't share at this moment a because it's a global audience so
there are some export control ratings and also there are some ip stuff however rest assured that as we
go in further into the program and if there is a proposal that's selected we will then ensure we have the
right agreements and ndas in place that allows us to have a much more detailed sharing so that uh
whoever of you uh selected can have a proper in-depth understanding of the processes okay so standard engine disassembly
today uh i have just put an example of an engine but effectively it can apply to any other engines as
well for rolls-royce our main business is civil aerospace but for those of you are that unfamiliar we also
have uh business aviation so all your private jets we do marine applications we also do land-based gas
turbines this specific one is for aerospace however that means both business jets as well as the very
well-known trend engines so the rolls-royce has some of the core trend engines like trend xwb on the a350s
as well as trend 1000s trend 700s and the brand new trend 7000 and trend 1000 xc regardless of which trend
engine we are talking about when the engines come in for disassembly this is the orientation that is on
the picture that the engine is on the aircraft so this is what we call horizontal orientation
when the engines come in we have to flip it 90 degree through gantry system and ceiling mounted cranes
and then as the engine is vertically placed we do a sequential front to back disassembly
so that means in our engine structure it is structured from module one to module seven uh fives at the bottom we
take out module one from the top first followed by module two module three so on and so forth one of the
the core reasons for doing that is because uh where rolls-royce engines differentiate from uh some of our
competitors is what we have a three shaft engine so we have three systems the low pressure system
which is at the two furthest ends the compressor and the turbine the intermediate pressure system and then
the high pressure system each of these systems consists of a shaft and a compressor stage and a turbine
stage so they are all stacked up accordingly so first we take out the low pressure compressor
then the shaft so that's why we do the vertical way now obviously their vertical way provides us with some
significant advantages for one gravity is working for us because it's easier to stack up if you can imagine
however what that also means is because we are doing it sequentially when we have mro operations
not all the time we need to take a look at each of the seven modules
our module o4 and o5 are our hottest modules number four and number five a lot of the degradation that
happens happens in those modules and there are a lot of mro operations and refurbishments that we need to
do that are in module o4 and module o5 however in order to access o4 and o5 we still have
to take out one two and three and then we get to four and then we get to five the one big disadvantage
for that the very obvious one is time it takes a lot of time to remove that stacking and as i have put
here it takes two to three weeks servicing time and it's just for your info that two to three weeks is
not uh the entire engine is serviced within that time that two to three weeks is just on taking the engine
modules apart then and obviously with a large number of technicians per engine as well
now the problem statements we'll be talking about one of them is this very fact that we are doing it
in this top to bottom stacking fashion the second bit is a lot of the mro processes obviously is
standardized it's very sop standard operating procedure driven however there also is a significant level of
tacit knowledge in the system what that means is because these engines go through significant amount of
wear and tear as in operation the standard operating processes sometimes have to be
uh added on with tacit knowledge of experienced engineers on certain things so if there is a specific
talk that's given sometimes that tacit knowledge lies in how exactly do you place the wrench or the top and
untalkit which might not be there in the sop and in singapore with a pretty evolving workforce
retention of this tacit knowledge in such a complex task becomes quite challenging so this i hope gives you a
very broad introduction to the disassembly process that we have today right uh now i will jump into
the first problem statement which is augmented training and disassembly uh i am assuming all of you have
read these words before because this is on the domain so the whole point of this problem statement
goes back to what i mentioned previously in terms of tacit knowledge retention but also
for expedited training and augmenting now i want you guys to uh keep in mind that i want to be very
emphatic on the word augmenting what we are looking for is not an alternative method to train but an augmented
method method to train which means we will obviously have all the certification requirements that goes
through the training what we are looking for is augmenting that training and the disassembly process
that allows us to a capture this tacit knowledge so that when we have workforce that's uh refreshing we do not
start from base ground zero and the second thing is how can we augment the task of training and retraining
and the actual disassembly task through any form of new technologies right so let's get into it a bit more in
the next slide so this is the challenge for any new technician that joins in rolls royce it takes
between six to nine months of full certification and when i say full certification i mean the entire engine
in front to back of which two to four weeks are very very focused on the external assembly of the training
per engine time so what do i mean by external assembly uh in the picture you can see that external of the
engine is all the things from we have something called line replaceable units so uh units that are mounted
on the external of the engine this includes things like fuel pumps fuel oil heat exchangers and the eec which
is effectively the brain of the engine but on top of these units we also have tons of harnesses
pipings tubings tubings and wirings this entire process is extremely time consuming and more importantly
it is on the critical path because firstly you cannot go inside the engine until you take these out so you
cannot be running this in parallel so it's the first out and also once the engine has been built back up
these are the last operations to happen so they lie on the critical path for each engine it requires roughly
10 to 12 technicians per shift and obviously it is a skilled task knowing exactly which pipe in which
orientation do we place what are the p clips and the bolts that go in and there definitely is a lot of
tacit knowledge in it today's operations we have some level of digitization we do have our instructions
on tablets but at the end of the day it is still a tablet driven instruction where we are the workers
are going up and down the pdf sheet looking for part numbers matching them to the process step and then
matching them to the exact dimensions and then placing it on bolting it on and so on and so forth
there are certain uh nuances to it where even though the process steps say a b c d e so for assembly so for
this assembly it will be reverse e d c b a but in certain cases we know that doing e d c a b might be
better for certain engines because of the way the pipes are placed and this kind of things are tacit
knowledge and a lot of these critical knowledge exists in the muscle memory of experienced technicians
given the variations of not only different engine types so like trend 700 versus trend 1000 but also
within an engine type there are different uh mods so you have trend 1000 a b c d e f g it is actually
quite challenging to codify and standardize this is where this problem statement comes from where we are
looking to use next generation digital capabilities to first help in the training element of technicians
focusing on the externals and then using some form of digital capability to augment the actual task of
this assembly as well as reassembly right so if i go to the next slide that kind of talks about some of the
key requirements so in terms of requirements as i mentioned we want to focus on the external engine
components harnesses looms fuel pipes hydraulic tubings brackets fasteners we are not looking for internal
assembly for this just the externals uh there will be a element of teaching complex routing so there is
harnesses have to be routed in a certain orientation and direction in constrained spaces uh the sequencing
is critical because there are certain dependencies in some cases the tasking is always sequential but in some
tasks the sequential nature is critical because of the dependencies whereas in other tasks it is
not critical it's just we need to have a sequence and we have a sequence but they can do can be done in
parallel uh one of the other key things is as we are talking about in terms of doing the training when we
we want to go into application and assisting actual disassembly real-time error detection
is significantly valuable because we focus on something called right first time rft and if you do something
wrongly and you only find it out much later you have to undo all the tasks a bit like control z function on excel
so we would want to have real-time error detections when something is done out of order as well as
the element of simulation of common error modes and this comes from some of the tested knowledge
that oh these are some of the common errors that happen because that will give people learning from
experience without actually having to make that mistake first uh from our performance metrics we have
put certain performance metrics but obviously there's a lot of dependency on the final solution
we want to have uh this not a very very complicated process but we want to have trainees complete the
onboarding of whatever platform we pick within two weeks and we want to have uh seventy percent
uh actively using within six months which means it's scalable and deployable across uh different
sites we have in different parts of the world uh for i know we are going to talk about questions later
but i'm very sure it's a very relevant question that just popped up so i will touch on it uh as part of
this pilot we are not expecting a fully deployable solution as part of this pilot we are and this
is applies to both the problem statements as part of this pilot we are looking for a prototype to tell
us what is the art of possible what kind of platforms can be used and uh in single demo of how it will
work but not a final scalable solution uh and to start off for this we want to just focus on five
distinct engine types and not all the different variants within these engine types and we also want
to make sure that when we add on as we go into so our engine can have a modification we don't have to do
a complete system redevelopment which means we should be able to teach the system any modifications that
come in without having to go back to square one okay so that covers the first problem statement uh
yoannes do you want to do the questions and then go on to the next one because they are two separate or
should i just i think we can continue great so given that all of that i said the second one
is a lot more focused on handling the engine so i again go back to my introduction i said
we flip the engines 90 degree to make it into a vertical orientation and then we take it out uh
step by step from one to seven we want to look into a solution that firstly is modular so i will talk
about what modular means but non-linear so what i mean by non-linear is if i want to you tackle module
number four can i keep one two three together take it out and then take module four out on its own do
everything i need to do in module four and put module four back and then put it back together so very
specific in our engine mro so let's go to the next slide that has a bit more details on it
so as i mentioned the engines are rotated from 90 degree which you see in the picture to a horizontal
vertical orientation and we have fixed engine stands uh there are different kind of stands
depending on which part of the mro the engine is at and there are some examples in the pictures itself
the right hand side the blue one is a full complete engine transportation stand on the left hand side
the yellow one is a full engine static stand and the left most orange one is a module stand so we do
have different stands for different parts of the engine but when we do mro we do front to back or
top to bottom and we always have to take out each module one by one we definitely need overhead cranes
and it is a very fixed process that everything we want to do has to follow that specific order
so if there is an issue on one engine like i said it takes about a few weeks to take the engine apart
but for some reason if there is one of the joints that has seized bolts so the bolts are stuck because
of certain distortions or certain heavy landings then we have to put in extra effort to do that task
but it creates a domino effect and delays the tasks lagging behind it and that is due to the rigidity
in the system we cannot deviate from this established sequence and i think the limited flexibility
is a key point because when we want to specifically work on one module we still have to take out rest
of the modules and that means additional time and that also means additional option of finding things
it's a bit like if you have a problem i hope none of you do but if you have a problem in your heart or
lungs you still end up doing an open heart full body scan and you might find a lot more things that
does not need to be fixed at this point in time so we go through undue unnecessary burden on the mro
shops so this is a big problem and it has an impact on the time the engine takes to come out of our shops
which we call turnaround time and we have another thing which is called work scope creep so if the
engine came in to only work on module four but because we have taken the other modules apart we end up
spending a lot more time inspecting those things so what are we looking for as in the requirements
which is the next slide is that we need a solution and i have just given an example right this is an
actual engine stand but if i want to visualize this i have sliced this into four different parts
so if we want a modular base so the engine is still horizontal not vertical but the engine rests on a
platform that is modular so if the engine is made up of one to seven maybe the base platform is also made
up of seven modules and they can have a quick change cradle interface which means we can keep module one
two three together four five six together but then split one two three as one half four five six as one
half and that means we can switch between a whole engine and a module level configuration with relatively
less effort and time uh for this again we are not expecting a full prototype because the full
prototype is going to be a few meters long and very very complicated but we are looking at uh
some finite element analysis to understand the loadings that will be taken a design concept and
overall the conceptual design of how this modular
trace dock how do they interface with each other and how do they move we do want to have some
ergonomic features so that that allows technicians to access different parts of the module because
if we have to take it out and put it back in a vertical orientation that's just additional burden
and we want to have non-linear handling which means like i said go to force go to force trade
uh some of the safety features have to be very well defined which is it needs to have positional
accuracy because that is critical when we align the engine so some form of alignment capability be it
optical be it uh digital be it sensors and obviously the safety element needs to be baked in because
there will be humans operating in collaboration with this solution so that is all the
presentation i have and i think now would be a good time to go through the questions
absolutely thank you so much so if anyone wants to unmute themselves um do feel free to directly do so
if you're on the move or you prefer to do it in writing instead you may as well
use the chat feature uh within zoom does anyone have any questions that they want to start with
because i see there's also some in the channel yes ryan hi hi uh hi raj this is ryan um on your second uh
second issue so am i right to say that you are looking at building a stand or making modification where
you can rotate the the engine 90 degrees
yeah so i do not want to rotate the engine 90 degrees
i want because but if we we already are able to rotate the engine 90 degrees not understand but using a
crane but what we at this for this solution i do not want to rotate it 90 degrees
i want to keep it in the horizontal orientation basically the orientation it comes in
and i want to split basically break up the engine in the horizontal orientation
okay so am i right to say that at a horizontal orientation you are trying to disassemble and make it um
extended um from the front to the back correct
okay okay i understand so in in this manner can we say that uh if we want to proceed further we need to go
in a bit deep dive and maybe on the side and understand uh your problem statement on site uh rather than just
through this is because there's a lot of uh mechanical understanding on how currently the the engine is
been disassembled so am i right to say that so i did so this definitely will not be the only information
you get uh and there will be an element of understanding the current process but i think
the focus would be on not the engine itself but the stands which is where the modularity comes in because
today it's a long stand that holds the entire engine at certain fixed locations
it's about having the understanding of how do we design a modular stand that is able to hold different
parts of the engine when we take it apart yeah i understand your point perfect i do have quite a few
questions uh raj coming at you very hot in the chat in the chat um first one and i will do this in a random
order i think that's a very good question to clarify maybe from your side he's participant isn't sure if
is it possible to get to module four without disassembling completely modules one two and three
yes uh exactly uh it's a very good question and that is pretty much the challenge here however
the challenge i'm not expecting this forum to solve is it's more about how do we keep
the more abstance so yes answer to that is we can keep one two and three together because three is
connected to four so as long as we do the unbolting of three to four it is separated but we need to find
a way to make sure that the balancing of the engine as we take it apart is maintained which is
why today we do it in the vertical orientation because it is the most sensible way we do it and
that's how we have done since decades but what we are looking for is can we just keep one two and three
together on both the interface between three and four and then keep that entire one two and three as
one module move it apart so that four is exposed
thank you um next question uh from wassoon desmond uh the current process is a rigid front to back top
to bottom sequence dictated by the fixed 90 degree engine stand can you confirm if this linear disassembly
sequence is an absolute engineering requirement for the engine i.e to access critical structure bolts
or is it a procedural rule developed over time to work around the limitations of the existing stands
and sorry i lost my yeah it keeps disappearing isn't it
yeah because people when people write something i think stands an overhead crane setup in other words if
we gave you a tool that could safely present any module in any orientation would the engine's design
allow you to for example remove the immediate compressor before the fan or is that technically impossible
yeah uh that's a very good question and the answer to that is yes you can you can't remove
so i'll go specifically that example that's given we can't remove the intermediate compressor
before the fan because the fan is the low pressure compressor system so the low pressure compressor system
is connected to the intermediate compressor system but if i want to remove the high pressure turbine system
which is number four i do not need to remove the low pressure and the intermediate pressure
compression system i just need to remove the high pressure turbine system with the combustor unit but
anything up front doesn't need to be except and that's why i say again it's possible remove the shaft which goes
all the way through all the way through the engine but the shaft again you can
pull it out but the if i'm removing the turbine
any bolting between intermediate compressor and low pressure compressor is not does not need to be removed
okay uh sophia has a question regarding scale if a pilot proves successful at one facility
would royce royce prioritize fleet wise standardization across all mro sites or phased implementation based
on engine type and facility constraints uh very good operational question the answer is we will do it
in a phased approach for a couple of reasons obviously the phased approach allows us to verify the solution
and once we have verified to pull out any challenges and issues that we might face so what we don't want
to do is implement globally and then any challenges we face we know that now that same problem is going to affect
all the other mro shops because that's going to take a significant hit on the entire operational structure
so we will pilot it in one facility and we will then run it for through the operations for a few times
and even in that facility we will still have both the traditional method and the new method and when we gain
some confidence so we will follow the technology readiness level process and once we have hit
trl7 then we start rolling it out in the other factories there will be an element of rolling out
per engine type rather than and so for example if the singapore facility does five engine types
we will roll it out on one engine type and then we will start rolling it out on the same engine type
across before we go move on to the second engine type jonathan has a question regarding the training
challenge statement um given the sorry ryan human meeting yourself please thank you uh jonathan was
asking given the distributed nature of your mro sites how important is global standardization of training
versus allowing for local adaptation so we do need to have global standardization of training because
that allows us with the agility to move across sites as and when operational needs require so there needs
to be a standard baseline training across all the sites regional adaptations generally do not
happen because this region something different is happening there are some level of regional adaptations
happen but that is more to do with supply chain so for example if there are certain kind of
torque drivers that are found that are cheaper but still the same quality but slightly different design
in certain region those mro shops might end up using that torque driver as long as it's approved and
validated but the baseline training of how we take an engine apart and how we put it back together
is standardized across shops because one uh there is obviously an engineering reason for it which is what i
explained that we want to make sure that all the engines have the exact same method but also we all want
there's a commercial reason because we want to maintain our turnaround time of the engines for across all the
different global sites so there isn't a lot of regional variation there is some level of tacit knowledge
that you pick up and we are hoping to embed that in the modern training approach that we are looking for
and what that's all in english or how does that work the training uh instructions they are all in english
but they could be translated to and we have started to do that in some of our regional sites where english is
not the predominant language okay but for the purpose of this is more around the english uh language
sorry then yes we do have different languages perfect um back to the engine disassembly challenge
statement there's a lot of interest around this are there specific mountings that are placed in
each module that allows for a firm grip and hold or manipulation of that module
sorry it's the last one from ionl uh this specific mountain will be
yes so not only in the modules but also across the engine there are very specific
uh points where clamping points where you can add either a overhanging or a ground based engine stand
which is standardized to our fixed stock drivers and fixed loading that allows only those points where you
can clamp the module or the engine
another one from ryan oh it's getting very busy here uh if a local vendor manages to customize the stand to
suit the needs will the design and ip be protected for this local vendor specifically back to other mro global sites
yes so this is a question which even i had discussed with agrise and esg uh at the end of the day there
will be the way we operate the ip will be whatever is rolls-royce ip that's bringing into the program it's
rolls-royce and whatever the uh local vendor brings into the program is local vendors for the foreground ip
that will depend on the type of ip so the two projects they are slightly different because
in one project we are talking more about design whereas in the other project we are talking more
about digital so we do have a structure a commercial structure of how we negotiate the ip which will be
discussed up front it won't be you know after everything is done then we come up with it we will be
discussed up front and based on that model some of it will be either licensed out or some of it will be
uh you know with the local vendor with ip will be protected for this local vendor and then the local
vendor can license it out to the other mro global sites thank you um another question where do i go next
um cover this cover this from another one from watson uh desmond limb hi raj to design a truly flexible
system we must understand the human interface at each step could you describe the current manual
process for indexing and locking the engine in its fixed 90 degree position specifically what are the
physical steps a technician takes to verify the engine is safely mounted and what are the most common
ergonomic challenges or points of physical strain they experience during the setup and the subsequent module handling
yes so uh this is probably a question that is a much uh bigger discussion uh but uh currently
the manual process for indexing and locking uh could you describe the current manual process so it's hard for
me to verbally describe it but effectively uh what are the physical steps so in our manuals there are
specific items that's written that as we mount the engine there are very specific engine stands that are
not the ones i've shown in the picture that allow the engine to be placed vertically in and then we lock it
in specific locations to enable that it's always stable vertically on top of that uh in terms of the
interface we have raised platforms at different heights of the engine that allows the technician to
work on that specific module and then the platform is lower that allows the step technician to work on the
next module eventually once we have reached some level of disassembly we can then rotate it back to
horizontal again if need to and then we subsequently disassemble it so there is no fix like it must always be
vertical or horizontal when it is already in a module but when we are taking the engines out it is always
vertical now i know i didn't fully answer the question because like i said it's a basically there are
specific steps but i'm happy to kind of have this chat after uh on what are the physical steps
perfect maybe i'll do one last one raj before i let you go um given the safety critical and highly
standardized nature of engine mro is shirin asking what would be the biggest organizational or
regulatory hurdles to shifting away from the established handling sequences
fantastic question i will tackle this in the two ways organizational and regulatory so the first one
i will tackle is regulatory in the regulatory framework there are very specific things that we look out for
things like torque value things like alignment things like gap checks these things do not specifically mention
whether it's horizontal or vertical these things are specific measurable outputs of the disassembly and the reassembly process
as long as we are not deviating from these specific steps and then eventually the engine will still go for
an engine test if there are certain things that have not been done correctly again i'm talking about
talking bolting aligning it will have engine vibrations which we will detect at the engine test
so for that reason it will not pass off anyways so coming to the regulatory part of it as long as we are doing
the actual steps in localized steps correctly and to the established framework whether we are doing it in a
horizontal manner or a vertical manner will not make any difference so from a regulatory framework it's
perfectly fine because we need to focus on those localized tasks to be done to the standard to the
specs and then we will cover all the regulatory requirements from organizational requirement we need
to follow a very thorough trl process so those that are unfamiliar is the technology readiness level
today this technology is at a trl two three uh we need to mature it through this trl process
robustly because if we are able to mature it through the trl process then it automatically gives the
organizational confidence of passing off this technology into our operations post trl six so we will
definitely be following a trl framework to deliver the solution which will tackle the organizational
resistance if you may perfect raj thank you so much for all of your generous sharing and raj is not going
anywhere if you there are some questions that we didn't answer we'll get back to you get back to them
offline and you can continue asking your questions via the agrise platform chat interface as well
uh but just to quickly uh wrap up and uh as a quick reminder so now it's the end of the q a segment um
the applications are open until the 17th of april uh after which the shortlisting and clarification
sessions uh will happen throughout may leading up to a final selection in late june don't forget we have
up to a total of 400 000 singapore dollars in funding support and of course beyond the grant this is also
your gateway to partnering with these industry leaders and accessing mentorship to scale your solutions
so do join us do register if you have any further questions do reach out by the platform and thank you so much
again for all of you for joining us and also to raj for very generously answering all the questions thank
you so much and have a great rest of your day
so
so
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