Taking the long haul out of aviation document management

PROJECT BACKGROUND

Aircraft are only profitable when they’re flying, yet their maintenance is a complex and highly regulated field. In the past, the administrative workload of capturing, processing and verifying maintenance and technical records could see aircraft remain out of service for up to two months during lease transactions, but in 2008, the start-up Waviatech had developed an innovative solution to streamline document management in the industry: Stream.

PROJECT BRIEF

Red River’s initial engagement was to secure and improve Stream’s web-portal, but in partnership with Waviatech it identified that the core product could be further improved by the adoption of features including advanced compression to enable web-service delivery of documents, a customisable workflow to deliver documents to the right viewer or approver, and preemptive loading based on user behaviour such as keyword searches.

Red River was commissioned to prototype a new version of the software which would be demonstrated at an industry show. The prototype’s success led to firm orders for the improved product.

KEY HIGHLIGHTS

In just three months, Red River created a downloadable version of the Stream app as a Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) Smart Client with web APIs. The app could integrate with scanning hardware, used native compression algorithms, and supported offline working. Its custom workflow and batch processing tools and engines were written in C#, while feature flags were used to support customer-specific or licenced functionality.

RESULTS

Described by one early customer as “the product the industry has been waiting for,” the redesigned Stream solution became an industry leading product, reducing turnaround in lease transactions to as little as a single day. Waviatech signed deals with major customers including EasyJet, and in 2010 it was acquired by AerData. In 2014, Stream’s continued success contributed to the acquisition of AerData by Boeing.