Everywhere you look, technology is being employed to improve the state of our world. Electric vehicles (EVs) are now being produced by almost every major car manufacturer—a trend that is bound to continue as President Biden recently called on three of the major automotive leaders to pledge to have zero-emission vehicles account for at least 40 percent of their car sales by the end of the decade. Renewable energy sources, like wind, solar and hydropower, are on the rise as well. In fact, they were the only energy sources that saw an increase in demand in 2020 despite the pandemic; all other fuels declined. And small, dime-sized environmental sensors are being used to identify pollutants and monitor air and water quality—providing real-time data that is crucial intel affecting our social and economic well-being.
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The key to reducing carbon footprints and driving sustainability efforts is data and analytics, especially at companies with high manufacturing output, like Rolls Royce Civil Aerospace. While most people think of luxury cars when they hear “Rolls-Royce,” it is important to note Civil Aerospace is its own company, having separated from the car manufacturing arm in 1971. It is now a wildly successful manufacturer of commercial airplane engines—with 35 different types of commercial aircraft and more than 13,000 engines in service around the world—and a leader in its industry for innovation.
When Stuart Hughes, Chief Information and Digital Officer at Rolls-Royce Civil Aerospace, joined the company in 2019, he made it his mission to improve the data culture within the organization—one that would make the data collected more valuable and accessible. The amount of data his team is able to collect is constantly increasing as technology gets better and better. “On our newest engine, we get hundreds of data points per second, per engine, per plane, per flight,” Hughes says. But it’s not just enough to collect all this data, it must be disseminated and made available, quickly and efficiently, to all relevant parties in the organization in order to help them make better informed decisions. For Rolls-Royce, this data collection has proven especially helpful around one of the company’s major focuses: sustainability.
Decreasing carbon through real-time data collection
Rolls-Royce recently created a new cloud platform that is able to collect, with permission, its clients’ data in real-time. This information obtained directly from the airlines’ engines is then funneled into the Databricks platform where the company stores and manages the data, as well as uses it to build and train AI models. This gives Rolls-Royce insights into how the engines are performing and ways to improve maintenance schedules. “We are trying to minimize the downtime of the airplanes,” Hughes says. The implication? Less downtime, delays, and re-routing—all of which translate to a reduced carbon footprint. In fact, the company reports that it has already saved an estimated 22 million kilograms of carbon using data from planes in flight—and this is just the start; the eco-friendly effects will only continue to be felt more and more as time goes on.
Recycle and reuse through inventory monitoring
Rolls-Royce is also using Databricks to pull in large amounts of information to help to inform decisions around material reuse and repurpose strategies. The Databricks Lakehouse Platform is a unified platform that simplifies a company’s data architecture by eliminating the data silos that traditionally separate analytics, data science, and machine learning. It’s built on open source and open standards to maximize flexibility and its collaborative capabilities accelerate the ability to work across teams and innovate faster. “We employed Databricks to look at inventory and help optimize it—analyzing what parts we need to order, what should be done with our slow moving stock, etc.,” Hughes says. He cites an example that speaks directly to the company’s sustainability initiative. The company identified forgings (basically large blocks of metal) just sitting in inventory not being used. But the question remained: Would there be much demand in the coming months for the metal in its current state? Using predictive analytics, it was determined there wouldn’t be. This allowed Rolls-Royce to repurpose the material for other projects instead of buying more—reducing costs while helping the environment through reuse. “We are able to make smarter inventory decisions based on the data and analytics,” Hughes says.
Reduce waste through predictive maintenance
On paper, a freight train hustling down the tracks and making excellent time looks good. However, what if sensors on the track, which are connected to the internet, tell a different story—one where one of the parts of the engine is failing? Having this real-time info sent to the appropriate parties in seconds can prevent breakdowns, delays, and financial losses. This idea of predictive maintenance is already in play in Rolls-Royce’s aviation engines. Each engine is able to be monitored separately to help inform maintenance crews of its condition. The data that is collected tells the story of the environmental conditions it has been exposed to, such as air pollution, bad weather, and different land masses. Knowing the conditions and the level stress they can place on the engine can help determine the life cycle of different parts of the engine. Rolls-Royce is able to determine more accurately when it is time to replace parts, thus reducing waste and time by making sure the right parts are in the right place at the right time. Rolls-Royce makes this data transparent, allowing its aeronautic clients—from global air forces and navies to commercial airlines and civil nuclear operators—to view it through its mobile app. The program has been another sustainability success story for Rolls-Royce. The company reports that it has seen maintenance time extended by up to 50% in some cases.
Rolls-Royce understands that something must be done to help save our planet. An innovative organization that recognizes that technology—in particular data and analytics—can greatly assist in sustainability efforts. But Rolls-Royce is just one company in one industry. Imagine the implications as more and more businesses in all sectors start to utilize data and analytics to develop eco-minded processes and programs. The result? A better future for all.
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This story was produced by WIRED Brand Lab for Databricks.
