Responding to a challenge form the UK Aerospace Technology Institute, a consortium of six innovative small businesses – known as AMROCCS – are collaborating to convert a bright idea into reality and keep the UK as world no.2 in aviation. MRO means “maintenance, repair and overhaul” of aircraft – high quality MRO is vital to keep aircraft flying safely. Modern aircraft are designed by computer, but the question the AMROCCS group asked was how the digital world could be applied to MRO so it was even safer and more efficient, and trigger an engineering step-change. Their answer is to integrate many visual scanning technologies to capture changes in individual aircraft in an “as-is” digital model. An MRO technician wearing a wifi headset could “see” the repair needed, diagnose the fault, consult on-line expert engineers, receive training and structured work instructions, take delivery of exactly the parts and tools needed and, when finished, know the record had updated automatically. Supported by strategic partners Siemens, EasyJet, Marshall Aerospace and Autodesk, AMROCCS is based at the AMRC HVM Catapult in Sheffield for the 30 month R&D project.