Pratt & Whitney is to open a R&D centre for aftermarket maintenance and inspection technologies in Florida, USA.
The North American Technology Accelerator (NATA), will host development and industrialization programs in areas such as material restoration and process automation including advanced repairs, digital inspection, adaptive processing, and coating and masking for compressor and fan parts, blades, cases.
The technologies developed will be used by Pratt & Whitney’s (P&W’s) global maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) network.
According to P&W the the technologies will reduce cost, material demand, and environmental impact, while decreasing turn times, improving throughput, and delivering value to customers.
Kevin Kirkpatrick, vice president, Aftermarket Global Operations at Pratt & Whitney said, “NATA combines data science with know-how and automation to help address customer pain points such as inventory management and part availability, while accelerating our improved repair capabilities and efficiency to better serve our customers.”
Key projects to run include additive repairs for critical GTF (geared turbofan) engine components. The company expects to recover US$100 million worth of parts over next five years to support GTF MRO ramp.
P&W opened a similar R&D center, the Singapore Technology Accelerator (STA) in September 2022 with a focus on robotics, advanced inspection, connected factory and shop digital twin. STA has since delivered over 30 innovations which will maximize the productivity in MRO processes. The company is positioning NATA and STA as part of its Industry 4.0 transformation.
