Pratt & Whitney outlines MRO technology accelerator

Apr 11, 2024 - 1:49 pm

Pratt & Whitney has announced details of its planned North American Technology Accelerator (NATA), a commercial and military aftermarket operations centre of excellence based in Florida. The NATA will have dedicated floor space, equipment and resources for the development and industrialisation of technology insertion programmes that will support the company’s global maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) network.

The accelerator projects in Florida are primarily focused on material restoration and process automation including advanced repairs, digital inspection, adaptive processing, and coating and masking for compressor and fan parts, blades, cases, and more. The benefits of these technologies will reduce cost, material demand, and environmental impact, while decreasing turn times, improving throughput, and delivering value to customers.

“NATA combines data science with people know-how and state-of-the-art automation to help address customer pain points such as inventory management and part availability, while accelerating our improved repair capabilities and efficiency to better serve our customers,” said Kevin Kirkpatrick, vice president, Aftermarket Global Operations at Pratt & Whitney.

Key projects include additive repairs for critical GTF engine components. With this new additive repair technology alone, Pratt & Whitney expects to recover $100 million worth of parts over the next five years to support the GTF MRO ramp.

NATA complements Pratt & Whitney’s fully operational Singapore Technology Accelerator (STA), which was established in September 2022 with a focus on robotics, advanced inspection, connected factory and shop digital twin.

STA has since delivered over 30 innovations which will maximize the productivity in MRO processes. Both accelerators leverage other RTX research and development expertise to enhance automation, connectivity, analytics and intelligence to benefit aftermarket operations. Combined annual savings of at least $24 million is expected from Pratt & Whitney’s accelerator programmes.
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