Maintenance-tracking provider Camp Systems purchased Continuum Applied Technology in March, adding Continuum’s Corridor Aviation Service Software to Camp’s list of capabilities. “It’s our intention to create a seamless flow of information between Corridor and Camp and other maintenance-tracking systems,” said Camp CEO Ken Gray. This would eliminate the common practice of having to enter information twice, into software–such as Corridor–that service centers use, then again into a maintenance-tracking system.

Gulfstream Aerospace, for example, uses Corridor in its factory-owned service centers. “They’ve done a good job of capturing information and using it in customer support,” he explained. “If we can reduce the paper flow and make [the process] more accurate, it will make it easier for service centers.”

Continuum founder and president Jack Demeis is remaining with the company, which is headquartered in Austin, Texas. Camp is located in Merrimack, N.H., with the maintenance-tracking activities centered in Ronkonkoma, N.Y.

“It’s a cornerstone acquisition for us in the ERP [enterprise resource planning] market,” Gray said. “We’re investing heavily.” This includes opening a new data center in Austin. “Corridor had a significant market share and was a quality player. Our ability to add research and development money and resources could really take it to the next level.”

Capturing and Using Aircraft Data

For Camp, that next level involves capturing data from aircraft sensors for trend monitoring of the entire aircraft. Currently, Camp offers trend monitoring services for Pratt & Whitney Canada (P&WC) and Honeywell TFE and HTF engines through its purchase of The Trend Group and the former P&WC Engine Condition Trend Monitoring (ECTM) operations. It is now the exclusive trend-monitoring provider for all Honeywell Maintenance Service Plan engines. The company monitors more than 30,000 Honeywell and P&WC engines installed in 16,000 customer aircraft.

“The real breakthrough is information coming off aircraft via sensors,” Gray said. “That’s where we have put our focus. We acquired ECTM because we felt the best use of information coming from sensors was from engine manufacturers.”

He added, “This is not only historical maintenance tracking, but forward-looking tracking; we can see a graph of trends and make maintenance decisions.” Ultimately, he said, “we see monitoring technology expanding to the whole aircraft. There are many sensors beyond engines. The [leading] edge of technology is integrating maintenance and engine health and things we capture like oil analysis data. Now all trending and monitoring is an integrated part of maintenance tracking. New technology is giving trend information in real-time or close to real-time; this is where the market is going.”

Gray expects airframes to yield sensor data too. “A lot of aircraft collect data,” he said, “but [the industry] hasn’t taken the step of making that data useful. Different manufacturers are solving that in different ways. We’re making sure that information can be presented in a useful way. All of that relates to the maintenance-tracking function, and more information to give a total picture of the health of the aircraft. We really need to embrace the bigger data picture that’s there to manage the health of the aircraft.”