“The engineers started from a blank sheet of paper. And they looked at our overhaul techniques and how we did things then. The idea was that nothing was out of bounds.”
Rolls-Royce engineers were being asked to reimagine an already delicate procedure, performed in a specialised facility with specialised, basically immobile, equipment.
“Everything was allowed on the table, we just had to fix it.” says Beverford.
He says they had to make it portable, effective and teachable – and that it all had to be done fast.
“We were told we had 50 days,” says Beverford. “So we all got to work.”
In a few weeks, they had developed a technique that allows the engine to be upgraded at the customer’s home base. Either next to the aircraft or very close to the aircraft.
“The way this ‘near-wing’ technique works is by removing modules from the engine horizontally (instead of from above via crane).
“This was something that had never been done before,” says Beverford, adding that there’s quite an advantage to the ‘near-wing’ technique.
“You can cut that repair loop in half, by having an airline do it at their own location.”
For all its promise, Beverford says that, at first, the near-wing method was greeted with a bit of scepticism.
Because performing ‘near-wing’ isn’t exactly changing a bike tyre. It’s a bit more like open heart surgery on a metal giant.
So to airlines, it probably sounded too good to be true. You no longer need to ship the engine away from your own location, we’ve sliced the maintenance time in half, and, by the way, you don’t even need a specialist – we can show you how to do it.
“There were definitely some jaws dropping when they first saw it,” says Beverford. “But the smiles and appreciation made it all worth it. It was very satisfying to have helped overcome this challenge.”
Now that these Trent 1000 upgrades are underway, the near-wing team have moved on to solving new challenges. (To stay up-to-date on these upgrades, visit our Trent 1000 updates hub).
“Effectively, there are a lot of modules in an engine. The Trent 1000 upgrade, the IP compressor blades, that was just one module,” says Beverford.
“We’re looking into expanding the application of a near-wing approach, so more and more upgrades and maintenance can be handled on site, saving our customers time and hassle, and getting aircraft back in the skies as safely and efficiently as possible,” he says.
Another day, another challenge. According to Beverford, that’s the life of an engineer.
“If an engineer doesn’t have an immediate problem to solve, like repairing something, then we challenge ourselves to find something to improve. We ask ourselves: OK, this works fine, so how can we make it better?”
“That’s how you stay at the cutting-edge. Never stop finding better ways to do what you’re doing. It can always, always be better. You’ve got to be relentless.”
Want to know more about what Rolls-Royce is doing to improve its Trent 1000 engine? Check out the Updates Hub.