The sky is the limit for new products at GE Engine Services, which is dreaming up new ideas almost as fast as new airliners are rolling out of Boeing's factories.

Gone are the days when engine companies looked to the sale of spare parts for future income and left the customer to fend for himself. Now, with service as the watchword, they are offering cradle-to-grave products-for a fee. GE Engine Services, in fact, now generates fully half of the annual $10 billion revenues of its parent, GE Aircraft Engines.

"You can buy spare parts from us, or repaired parts-or you can buy our Maintenance Cost Per Hour (MCPH) service where we take all the risk of maintaining the engine on-wing. All you worry about is flying the aircraft." So says Russ Sparks, head of business development at GE Engine Services.

That's the concept. But in the fast-moving service world nothing stands still for long.

GE Aircraft Engines' purchase last year of the Greenwich and UNC companies give it the capability to repair and overhaul components and accessories too; a logical next step is to extend MCPH from engines to a total below-the-pylon service including accessories, and even thrust reversers. "We're hoping to sign up the first customer very soon," Sparks told Show News, although this contract will not include the thrust reverser.

Unlike other manufacturers which tend to focus on their own engines, GE offers MCPH for powerplants built by its rivals as well.

A tie up with computer and communications giant Harris Corp. last July (to form GE Harris Aviation Information Solutions LLC, based in Melbourne, Florida) will spawn a whole raft of new products based on data management and information technology, which will likely take GE way beyond the realm of engines into selling best practices and products for airline and airplane management.

"We hope to have one customer for a Harris-based product signed up by the end of this year," said Sparks. He would not detail the actual product, but suggested where the tie-up could lead.

"The challenge is in handling tremendous volumes of data for large fleets of aircraft. Artificial intelligence is a key technology in that, as it can sort routine messages from anomalies." It is possible to tap every byte of digital data from a digital airplane, giving GE access to every on-board system as well as engines and accessories, including avionics and flight management systems.

"The goal is to improve productivity for airlines in a way that is transparent to them," he said. One possible product is the constant health monitoring and problem solving in real-time for all on-board systems.

Sparks noted that to offer the service, GE needs to provide a black box on the aircraft to transmit data. The box could also receive it; in theory Harris and GE could perform upgrades to aircraft systems and manuals, avionics and navigation software and databases on the ground, maybe even while the aircraft is taxiing out before a flight. In another progression, Sparks said engineers at GE are talking among themselves about a tie-up elsewhere in the industry to provide an avionics interface.

"The Harris partnership is focused on improving the productivity of the aircraft itself. This is a whole new business," said Sparks. "I really believe we are ahead of the world here."

By John Morris