Delta improves inspection times for its flyable safety equipment
18 April, 2013
category: RFID
Delta Air Lines is using SmartMark RFID tags from William Frick & Company to address maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) needs for its flyable safety equipment.
Using the custom RFID tags from Frick, Delta is able to streamline the audit process for safety equipment, and improve inspection time from what use to take approximately 10 man hours and bring it down to less than 3 minutes.
Frick’s SmartMark RFID Oxygen Generator tags provide Delta with valuable electronic data enabling just-in-time inventory management that was not previously available. The SmartMark tags can be further expanded to also include application to life vest boxes/pouches, passenger oxygen masks, medical kits, and many other emergency equipment items.
Delta personnel previously spent countless hours conducting tedious inspection processes to ensure that no safety items remained in service beyond their expiration date – multiplying this by Delta’s entire fleet of more than 700 aircraft – which equates to a visual inspection of approximately 140,000 life vests and more than 40,000 oxygen generators a year.
Using RFID, flight attendants can check an entire plane in less than sixty seconds. Frick SmartMark RFID tags for aviation are also AS5678 certified, as required by the FAA. Delta maintains safety and compliance, while realizing significant time and cost savings, while capturing more data.
The Delta solution incorporates RFIDAeroCheck software to track and monitor the parts, reducing maintenance turnaround time by up to 99 percent, increasing the accuracy of safety checks, as well as enabling improved on-time performance for Delta flights.
