Data analytics soar at Fortune 50 aerospace and defense firm 

Client background 

One of the largest part and system suppliers for a major international aircraft manufacturer relies heavily on part performance to ensure overall fleet reliability. 

The business challenge 

Manually consolidating data from multiple systems was time-consuming and limited the company’s ability to monitor and understand part performance across its fleet. As new aircraft entered service, the manufacturer needed a data-driven narrative for each plane to improve maintenance decisions and overall reliability. 

Strategy and solution 

Baker Tilly developed the “Story of the Plane” — a data analytics solution integrating onboard system data, weather information, and other previously siloed sources to quickly identify root-cause issues for faulty or maintenance-needing parts. 

The Baker Tilly Analytics team: 

• Aggregated structured and unstructured data from internal and external sources, including: 
• Diagnostic information from aircraft computers during flight 
• Fleet schedule and historical route information 
• Comprehensive weather data from a third-party vendor 
• Internal quality and reliability data, including technician notes 
• Automated manual data curation and aggregation processes 
• Delivered an interactive interface providing business users with visibility across previously siloed data 
• Reduced dependency on IT while accelerating time-to-insight 

Business impact 

• 25% improvement in service and design engineering resource allocation 
• $1.8 to $3.8 million expected annual savings from faster issue resolution 
• 16x improvement in fleet visibility — monitoring 400 planes in half the time it once took to track 50 
• 75% of manual reporting automated, resulting in $740,000 annual cost savings