Bollore Logistics joins industry partners to launch MRO Blockchain Alliance

February 17, 2020: At the Singapore Airshow held from February 11-16, 2020, Bollore Logistics declared that it has joined the maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) Blockchain Alliance, the air transport's first industry-wide investigation. This alliance aims to bring the different stakeholders together to set a global standard around the use of blockchain technology to track, trace and record aircraft parts.

This new alliance includes organisations from their respective fields of expertise in MRO: Cathay Pacific, FLYdocs, SITA, HAECO Group, Ramco Systems, Willis Lease and Clyde & Co. SITA, as the air transport community's IT provider, will manage governance for the global alliance and ensure proper alignment and validation with regulators and international standardisation bodies.

"This initiative is part of SITA's ongoing exploration of blockchain, a technology that we believe promises tremendous opportunity for streamlining the sharing and recording of information across the air transport industry. In an industry, as interconnected as ours, the ability to share and record common data in a secure way is fundamental to driving new efficiencies in air travel. This is particularly true for the MRO sector," said Matthys Serfontein, president of air travel solutions for SITA.

With the MRO Blockchain Alliance, the process of tracking parts will be made simpler and faster. This also enables secure sharing of information across the different industry players and store historical data, with smart contracts specifically designed to fit the Alliance business requirements. With relevance to Bollore Logistics, available, accurate and exhaustive information will enable the company to optimise its resources, improve its customer satisfaction, explore new services opportunities, and to be aligned with its partners regarding the responsibilities of each actor all along the chain.

"Blockchain presents unprecedented opportunities to share critical data across multiple stakeholders in a secure way. Supply chain offers many possible use cases to do that and Bollore Logistics is at the heart of it. Corporate collaboration is a new way forward and the MRO Blockchain Alliance represents stakeholders from the whole aerospace industry with a common goal of creating value," said Cyrille-Ange Roux Luzi, aerospace manager, Asia-Pacific region, Bollore Logistics.

In the first semester of 2020, the alliance will launch a proof of concept to demonstrate the use of blockchain technology to digitally track and record the maintenance history of aircraft parts across all players in the MRO chain. Two separate strands of information for each aircraft part recorded and tracked: a digital thread and a digital passport. The digital thread provides the real-time status, chain of custody and back-to-birth track and trace of the part over time. The digital passport - like a human passport - provides the indisputable identity of a part and contains other vital data such as certification of airworthiness to prove ownership.