Meggitt: Aerospace manufacturer harnesses MRI Evolution as its primary building and asset maintenance tool
Background
With a global presence and a 170-year history of innovation in the aerospace, defence and energy markets, Meggitt has roots that go back to 1850 and the invention of the world’s first altimeter, the company. With investment in technologically differentiated systems and products with high certification requirements and with strong market positions on new international programmes, Meggitt provides systems for numerous types of aircraft worldwide, including brake systems, flexible fuel bladders, engine components and safety systems. This enables aircraft to fly safely and increasingly sustainably; provides armed forces with reliable and highly capable equipment; and, by applying many of the technologies developed within aerospace to the energy market, underpins cleaner energy production.
“If you’re on an aircraft, you’re probably no further than a metre away from a Meggitt part,” says John Barnes, Global Head of Facilities Management & Security at Meggitt.
In addition to this, Meggitt also supplies heat exchangers and other products to customers in the oil and gas industry.
The Procurement
When John joined Meggitt in January 2019, he identified that Meggitt currently did not have a single, central solution to best maintain and ensure the compliance of their buildings.
“We weren’t really utilising CAFM systems in the way that other companies traditionally do,” John explained. “Our systems were there to support production rather than in support of the built environments.”
The development of Meggitt’s new Head Office in Ansty Business Park, Coventry, which opened in early 2020, sparked the search for a CAFM system capable of managing the maintenance requirements of a site of that magnitude – the scale of the Ansty complex covers approximately 11 football pitches.
“For a building of that size it was important we had a system that would meet its needs and ensure the team looking after it could do so effectively,” said John.
The Meggitt team put out both an RFI and RFQ to identify this system, exploring a wide range of CAFM providers and even developing a custom, in-house solution.
“All options were explored in quite some depth. Through that process we developed our own balanced scorecards to compare each system against our needs, judging their capabilities, flexibility and cost-effectiveness,” described John.
Following this process, MRI Evolution emerged as the standout choice for the Meggitt team, demonstrating the flexibility and comprehensiveness they sought from a CAFM platform.
“It was very easy to dismiss some of the other products available to us, as they didn’t fulfill the complete package we were seeking,” explained John. “The ability to use the other elements of the MRI Evolution range, such as MRI Evolution Reach and MRI Evolution Go, built-in simply without any specialist devices, was key for our requirements.”
“It was a well-run exercise through both technical assessments and people assessments,” said Karl Broom, Territory Sales Manager at MRI, who has been involved in the Meggitt project since the outset.
“We underwent all due diligence with Meggitt to ensure this system met their needs. John and the rest of his team were excellent at articulating the scope of their requirements.”
The Implementation
MRI Evolution was officially brought on board for Meggitt in January 2020 in accordance with the opening of the Ansty complex. The system was initially mobilised in two smaller locations on the site – one in Birmingham, one in Coventry – and we are currently working with Meggitt’s team to finish mobilising the 8,000+ assets in the main facility.
During this process, a decision was made to not only harness MRI Evolution as Meggitt’s primary building maintenance tool, but also to use it to manage the company’s production maintenance requirements as well.
“We demonstrated the system we were bringing in for building maintenance to our production colleagues, who then leapt on it straight away,” explained John. “They really liked the functionality of it, and explored its options for their own needs.”
Previously those responsible for overseeing production maintenance were reliant on multiple systems to handle this duty. The potential to bring everything connected to both production maintenance and building maintenance into one complete system was a major selling point for the Meggitt team.
Combining these two distinct types of maintenance into a single system, while making sure users can seamlessly search for whatever asset they need, has presented several challenges along the way. Close collaboration between the MRI and Meggitt teams has ensured that solutions are identified when obstacles arise.
“With MRI we’ve always come to a solution that’s worked when challenges have emerged,” described John. “Karl, who was involved in the initial demonstration and sale of the product, has always remained a go-to person we can contact to explore alternative solutions when we encounter problems.”
Implementation was also affected by the backdrop of the COVID-19 pandemic, which prevented any possibility of in-person collaboration between both sides. However, despite these restrictions, progress has persisted remotely.
“When you consider that everything has had to be done remotely, making it as far down this journey as we have is a success in itself,” said John.
The Benefits
Alongside the core MRI Evolution platform, Meggitt’s system also incorporates the Evolution Reach Customer Portal and MRI Evolution Go Workforce Applications.
“MRI Evolution Reach is great because it enables any member of staff to access the system,” explained John. “The idea is to put this bubble around our business where everything ends up inside MRI Evolution and is accessible to anyone.”
John is equally complimentary of MRI Evolution Go: “MRI Evolution Go is a really interesting product. Its ability to load assets from nothing or to link assets to additional information, such as SFG20 or manufacturer’s requirements, and provide that to the engineer standing in front of that machine makes it a valuable and powerful tool for us.”
Although the full benefits and value of their MRI Evolution platform will not be fully understood until the system is 100% implemented, the Meggitt team has already seen improvements in how they now approach maintenance across their facilities and their ability to achieve compliance.
“It has helped our partners who provide maintenance to our business and our internal teams link everything together through MRI Evolution’s cloud-based solution,” described John. “It’s driving the right behaviour in relation to ensuring that maintenance is performed on time and that we can demonstrate that activity.”
“We now have a central location for three sites, with all of their assets easily locatable, linked to their important information, and connected to their various maintenance requirements.”
Meggitt has also seen enough from MRI Evolution to make it the core CAFM system within their business. As John outlined: “From this nucleus it has grown into becoming the overall preferred CAFM solution for our business.”
The Future
The Meggitt team is confident that their MRI Evolution platform will be at the heart of the company’s new approach to maintenance, both from a production and building management perspective.
“We are looking to push towards a more business-focused approach to maintenance” said John. “Without a strong CAFM system in place, this would be significantly more difficult and paper-driven which tends to slow down the process. We can produce the information for our assessments faster and adapt maintenance plans when required on our journey to business-focused maintenance.”
“The closer we get to fully mobilising MRI Evolution, the more we are understanding and appreciating the value of having a system like this has to offer.”
From this initial mobilisation of their Ansty complex, there are plans to extend the use of MRI Evolution in Meggitt’s locations across the UK, going as far south as Fareham, and spread it even further to their sites worldwide.
“There is interest from our sites across the globe, particularly in the U.S. where a number of our locations are keen to look at MRI Evolution, including our Miami site,” explained John.
“From my perspective, Meggitt’s team is very progressive and ambitious about rolling the system out wider,” Karl reiterated. “I’ve been involved in numerous demonstrations and discussions with their teams globally to showcase the capabilities of MRI Evolution to introduce it into the world of Meggitt.”
“It’s the type of relationship I like to have with our customers. We appreciate their intent to push the boundaries of what’s possible with the system.”
With both sides maintaining consistent dialogue and neither afraid to meet the challenges that come with pushing the boundaries of the MRI Evolution platform, our team at MRI are excited to be in the early stages of a strong, cohesive partnership.