5 min read
When you’re an on-demand charter company, if an aircraft goes out of service, you don’t have time to spare. But when most service centers are designed solely with stand-alone maintenance, repair, and operations in mind, inevitably, there’s a lot of waiting, wondering, and wasted effort.
At a National Business Aviation Association (NBAA) conference many years ago, ExecuJet Charter was looking for a way to encompass everything they do on a daily basis into a single platform, instead of having to use several different programs that required multiple windows open on a desktop at any given time. With Veryon, ExecuJet Charter was able to scale back without compromising on any services — meaning they could still have maintenance tracking, flight operations, and inventory management — all with just one provider.
Fast forward 2 years and many conversations later, ExecuJet’s goals evolved, and growth continued. After discussing if there was a potential for Veryon to help with an outside aircraft that wasn’t being tracked within the system, this conversation led ExecuJet Charter to be the inspiration for Work Center, a new offering in Veryon’s robust lineup of industry-leading solutions. As the only fully capable service center management solution on the market designed for business aviation operators and management companies, Work Center is specifically designed to get operators more aircraft uptime. This solution allows users to simplify the maintenance and return-to-service processes with streamlined invoicing, reliable integrations, and real-time airworthiness information — all in a unified platform.
“One thing Veryon has been really good at is listening to their customers,” said Rob Jones, Director of Maintenance for ExecuJet Charter. “Really, there are two types of companies in the world. You’re either a push or a pull. A push company pushes what they think you should have for operating your company. Veryon is a pull company. They have this product and vision, but they’re also pulling the ideas and listening to their customers that are already using their product to evolve and develop a sustainable future.”
Below, we explore how this service center management solution is transforming the aviation industry and how it can alleviate a headache (or two) by allowing organizations to spend less time on the computer or filling out paperwork and more time fixing aircraft. Continue reading below to learn how to enhance your maintenance efficiency, ensure accurate execution and ultimately, drive profitability for your operation.
How will this solution help service more aircraft?
Whether you’re looking to service more aircraft or maximize fleet potential, Work Center can help. With a solution that is designed to deliver integrated and optimized aircraft maintenance tracking, inventory, service center management, and operations software, you’ll gain real-time visibility into your data across departments. Users can efficiently coordinate labor, parts, and operational impact seamlessly, ensuring smooth maintenance execution without any unnecessary delays or disruptions, as well as maximizing the availability of an aircraft, opening doors to short-notice charter opportunities, and expanding revenue potential. Updates are also constantly being made, so you never have to worry about things being out-of-date.
“I put in a request and later in the day, I’ll see a blue box pop up on the screen that tells me there’s been an update and to refresh,” said Jones. “You click it and realize it’s something you submitted, and that goes back to Veryon being a pull company. They’re very interested in hearing what their customers have to say.”
What types of customers will benefit the most?
Teams that are completing a significant amount of in-house maintenance, particularly Part 135 operators in the business jet charter and management industry, will experience significant improvement in operations utilizing an end-to-end solution. Organizations with large fleets, for-profit operators, full-time technicians, helicopter operators, and EMS operators will also see much success.
Users have reported that since they’ve started using Work Center, they’ve saved time, and energy, experienced fewer errors and issues, and they no longer have to go to analysts for things to revise maintenance problems.
Jeremy Gee, Chief Executive Officer at Wing Aviation, recently shared his thoughts about the solution.
"At Wing Aviation, Veryon Maintenance Tracking has been an integral part of our aircraft management workflow for many years. We’re excited to participate in the growth of Work Center and look forward to leveraging it to efficiently manage our diverse charter fleet. Implementing Work Center has allowed us to consolidate our maintenance software into a single platform helping us to further simplify our processes, improve our clarity and continue the scalable growth of our business.”
What can it do to create more efficiencies?
When operators are using more than one system to report information, errors are prone to occur. Add in complicated maintenance and return-to-service processes and you’re not only in and out of different systems all day long, but you’re also experiencing an increase in duplicate entries. With an end-to-end solution like Work Center, the process is more streamlined, creating more efficiencies because everything can be done within one unified platform. Tasks can be done more quickly and easier so that you can efficiently return the aircraft to service.
How can I streamline workflows?
Work Center is part of the Veryon Tracking platform, which combines maintenance tracking, flight operations, inventory management, and technical publications in a single platform. This comprehensive solution optimizes aircraft availability through efficient logbook generation, detailed tracking of costs and labor, customizable workflows, pricing profiles, and invoicing. You can eliminate missing, unreliable, or clunky integrations between maintenance tracking and work order systems for a fully integrated flight department. Plus, get access to your full library of aircraft tech pubs and regulatory content with just one click from within the platform.
How is it different from solutions that are already out there?
Disjointed systems that don’t work well together are a thing of the past.
“Work Center is unlike any other maintenance execution solution out there,” said Kent Pickard, Veryon Vice President of Product Management. “We built the platform from scratch specifically for business aviation operators, with one goal in mind: maximizing aircraft uptime.”
Management companies in particular reap benefits related to the ability to track and plan maintenance, coordinate the parts, capture compliance data, and bill maintenance at a profit — all in one system.
“While most service center offerings were designed for stand-alone MROs, Work Center is purpose-built for aircraft operators, so they can focus more on improving their operations, growing their business, and ensuring accurate department billing and streamlined aircraft return to service process,” said Pickard.
When it comes to customer service, Veryon offers 24/7/365 support from a team of industry-leading aviation and technology experts.
“There are other options in the industry, but other companies aren’t as geared towards customer service,” said Jones. “In a world where I think customer service is slipping, Veryon’s has been increasing. There are big, top-notch companies that don’t answer the phone, but Veryon picks up right away and that’s who I want to do business with.”
What are some of Work Center's best features?
- Invoicing and Billing Profiles: Execute billing efficiently with customer-specific labor rates, parts mark-ups, and profit margin reporting.
- Status Availability: Provide real-time status updates on maintenance operations.
- Parts Acquisition: Ensure timely parts acquisition to return aircraft to service.
- Intuitive and Modern: Now more than ever before, it’s easy for new employees to be trained and existing employees to execute work accurately with streamlined functionality.
- Real-Time Airworthiness: Maintain up-to-date airworthiness status related to work in progress that is trapped in the work order system and not available for maintenance tracking.
- Reliability and Accessibility: Are you still using legacy Windows programs that are running on server-based software? Not only is it slowing you down, but you’re putting your organization at risk. Address reliability and accessibility issues with a modern product.
- External Aircraft Support: Even if it’s not in your maintenance tracking systems, operators can work on any aircraft or component.
- Documentation and Paperwork: It’s undoubtedly frustrating to do something only to find out you’ve done it wrong. Help operators get documentation and paperwork right the first time.
Conclusion
With a handful of providers out there that offer aviation maintenance, it can be a daunting task to decide what company is the best fit for your organization. One thing to keep in mind when making the decision is if the company is willing to listen to your company’s needs and willing to evolve with you, rather than just pushing a product. Veryon offers 24/7/365 live customer support from a team of industry-leading aviation and technology experts who are always available to assist.