Watch: Using technology to drive better outcomes in aviation fuel

Description:

Aviation industry expert Mike Farmery interviews Rob Midgley, Shell Aviation’s Global Technical and Quality Manager for Aviation Fuels. Rob will introduce Shell Aviation’s perspective and ambitions for the industry as it relates to incorporating sophisticated technology that will make airline operations more efficient in terms of time and costs.

Title: Using Technology to Drive Better Outcomes in Aviation Fuel

Duration: 5:18

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Bright, uplifting music

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The Shell™ pecten logo appears, then fades. A three dimensional model of Earth rotates while white silhouettes of planes fly across the globe. On the right side of the screen, a shot of Rob Midgley talking with no audio.

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This episode: Using Technology to Drive Better Outcomes in Aviation Fuel

{Mike Farmery sits onscreen. Facing him is Rob Midgley. The camera alternates between speakers.}

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Mike Farmery

Aviation Fuel Expert

Mike Farmery:

Hello, I'm Mike Farmery, and I'm here talking with Rob Midgley, the Global Technical and Quality Manager for Shell Aviation.

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Rob Midgley

Global Technical and Quality Manager

Shell Aviation

Rob Midgley:

Hi Mike, it’s great to be here.

Mike Farmery:

Rob, what is the relationship between technology and fuel in the current world?

Rob Midgley:

When you design and build aircraft, then things that are safety critical are either duplicated or they're designed to fail to safe. Fuel is one of the few items that I can think of in a whole aircraft system that neither fails to safe or is duplicated. So, we need to make sure that the fuel is right every time when we put it onto an aircraft, because it's a safety critical item.

So, there's lots of touch points within there where technology has fundamentally driven the industry and the products that are used within the industry, and allows us to then have a commodity which is safely used. So, whilst the product itself is commoditised in many ways, it is also a special product and it needs technology insights and technology development to be able to make sure that that fuel is fit-for-purpose.

Mike Farmery:

How do you see technology helping to give that reassurance that we have good quality fuel, all the time, around the world?

Rob Midgley:

I think this is the interesting place about where we are in technology terms today, in that we're starting to see technology being developed, whether that's compositional profiling, or sensors, or being able to detect water and fuel at miniscule amounts. So, we can detect water and fuel down to single parts per million. So, to give you an idea, there might be 7 million people living in London, we're detecting seven of them.

And there might be things that we're not doing now that we could be doing more of. So, one example might be we don't monitor the failure rate of equipment. And so, if we can put sensors on, say, pumps, or in terms of valves, see if we can acoustically see if valves are leaking. We can detect whether they're working or not. And then, apply a regime of maintenance based on failure rates.

So, by challenging the systems in which we work and the standards in which we work, to achieve the outcome that we want, we can start to imagine how technology might come into that space to make the outcome achievable by using different processes and means.

Mike Farmery:

Rob, coming out of the pandemic how do you see technology affecting how we do inspections?

Rob Midgley:

There's a number of different ways that people have been trying to manage that. So we've been able to do that with camera systems. So, initially, that's been handheld cameras. We have the challenge of making the cameras that we all have available on phones and tablets and such safe for the environment in which we operate. So, we need to make sure they're intrinsically safe. But we've managed to do that.

Where we're working into next is can that be made simpler? Can we make them wearable devices, for example, on glasses, for example. So, the communications at airports is increasing so that we can then data stream and it allows that type of functionality. The next thing that goes from there is do we then implement this after the pandemic, because lots of people are seeing the pandemic as a survival mode.

So, that potentially comes from digital inspections, rather than remote inspections. What I mean by that is can we capture the data that we currently capture on paper at the airport the activity that happens day to day that the inspectors are going to look at on a sheet of paper once a year? Can we capture that electronically and see that remotely?

And so, the process stops being one of the inspector going and trying to find faults. It becomes a process that we're sending inspectors and expertise to the site to support and improve performance of the site. So, it's a positive feedback rather than a negative feedback.

Mike Farmery:

Rob, airline fuel buyers often take standards for granted. If you were talking to an airline fuel buyer now, what would you say to him about what the future might hold as far as standards go?

Rob Midgley:

So I think one of the things that we're going to need to consider as an industry is how do we go back to the first principle of what we're trying to achieve with the standard and give ourselves some flexibility in the approach that we might take to achieving a goal.

So let me give you an example. When we handle fuel, we have a standard that we allow a tank to settle for, and that's three hours per meter or 24 hours.

So, we have a standard which has a requirement to do something rather than looking at an outcome. When we apply technology to that, what we can do is to say, "Well, what's the outcome that we want," which is clean, dry fuel. So, instead of needing to have a tank settle for a certain period, we're then measuring whether the fuel is clean and dry. And if the fuel is clean and dry going in, you may not need to settle at all.

Typically, what we have within the standards is an activity-driven process. And what I'd like to see us moving towards is an outcome-driven process, and that will start to make us much more efficient.

Mike Farmery:

Well, Rob, thank you very much. I've really enjoyed the conversation and I've much appreciated the insights that you've given us.

Rob Midgley:

Thanks very much, Mike.

[White screen with Shell pecten logo]

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