Pratt & Whitney Enlists IBM to Capture Value of Big Data

July 25, 2014

Matthew Monaghan

Through its teaming agreement with IBM, Pratt & Whitney will broaden its current performance monitoring capabilities of more than 4000 operational commercial engines.

Pratt & Whitney is teaming with IBM to enhance the engine fleet management and health solutions Pratt & Whitney offers to customers. Pratt & Whitney, with IBM's help, will broaden its current performance monitoring capabilities of more than 4000 operational commercial engines. IBM will assist Pratt & Whitney in leveraging its military diagnostic, prognostic, and health management capabilities to enable proactive and automated logistics to its commercial fleet. This will provide Pratt & Whitney customers with longer time on-wing, complement current asset maintenance alerts, and deliver better insight into flight operational data. "Today's aircraft engines can generate up to a half terabyte of data per flight,” said Alistair Rennie, general manager, Business Analytics, IBM. “This data deluge can be made into a critical resource if coupled with predictive analytics, creating a valuable asset for early warning or fault detection and improved visibility in to the overall health of aircraft engines.”