Industrials

<h2 class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Q1. Could you start by giving us a brief overview of your professional background, particularly focusing on your expertise in the industry?</span></h2><p class="MsoNormal">I&rsquo;m a mechanical engineer by profession, which is what I studied for my bachelor&rsquo;s and master&rsquo;s. Upon graduating, I got into an internship with Boeing, during which I was offered to extend my relationship with the company through a Boeing-funded PhD in Machine Learning. This is how I got into the AI industry, and since then, I have been working as a product manager throughout different industries, primarily aviation. I&rsquo;ve since added another Boeing-partnered management degree from the Durham, UK university.</p><p class="MsoNormal">My experience is particularly in building SaaS services in aviation, namely data and insights services that can serve multiple use cases throughout airline processes.</p><p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p><h2 class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Q2. What are some efficient strategies to reduce costs without compromising quality or service levels in the Aviation industry?</span></h2><p class="MsoNormal">This question is arguably very high-level and could have multiple responses from any operational aspect of an airline&rsquo;s business.</p><p class="MsoNormal">My first thought is to optimize within the boundaries of processes that are compliant with industry-governing structures. For example, an airline can choose a flight planning provider that can produce more economical flight plans, invest in software that helps to better manage one&rsquo;s maintenance, or have more effective crew rostering.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Another lever is to use services that yield insights faster than without, meaning that an airline can procure these for its dispatchers or other personnel to reach conclusions faster and better than without.</p><p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p><h2 class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Q3. Are there recent or planned investments in technology to improve the operational efficiency of the Aviation supply chain?</span></h2><p class="MsoNormal">I don&rsquo;t know how to answer this question, as I&rsquo;m not active in the aviation industry at this point in time. In general, the industry is always looking to increase the efficiency of any of its processes. One thing to keep in mind is that the industry is profoundly conservative. This means that a lot of systems and architectures are off-limits for innovation and new technologies. The implication of this is that any innovation typically happens in systems only that are non-flight critical. Due to the conservatism of aviation, technological advancements are very slow compared to, e.g., automotive. While the latter, for example, has seen some vehicles utilize tools such as ChatGPT, one can argue that the last major innovation on the flight deck was introducing an iPad instead of 20kgs of paper charts.</p><p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p><h2 class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Q4. How do you leverage AI to improve overall supply chain efficiency and customer satisfaction in the Aviation industry?</span></h2><p class="MsoNormal">otherwise,e at Boeing, I&rsquo;ve leveraged AI to train models and, in turn, produce insights that otherwise weren&rsquo;t available. As such, I&rsquo;ve contributed to building services to predict the phase of flight any flight is in or to determine whether a flight is deviating from its original destination. There are many potential applications in aviation for this, always with the caveat that AI tools shouldn&rsquo;t typically touch critical flight instruments and processes.</p><p class="MsoNormal">In my opinion, customer satisfaction is more a by-product of these solutions. In any case, such solutions aim to improve the process of an airline, decreasing the number of unwanted events and interruptions and cutting down on the time an airline does any process.</p><p class="MsoNormal">All of these factors are of the same interest to customers; hence, any improvement in operational efficiency will directly affect customer satisfaction.</p><p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p><h2 class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt;">Q5. If you were an investor looking at companies within the space, what critical question would you pose to their senior management?</span></h2><p class="MsoNormal">Assuming this is about making an airline more efficient or lean, then my main question would be:</p><ul><li class="MsoNormal"><!-- [if !supportLists]-->What are you providing and/or doing so that I cannot get the same service from a competitor?</li></ul><p>There will be many following questions after this one, such as</p><ul><li><!-- [if !supportLists]-->How are you compliant to the necessary standards for information/data sharing?</li></ul><p class="MsoNormal">It is also important to realistically estimate the impact of any service and not only consider ideal cases.&nbsp;</p><p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p><p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p><p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p><p class="MsoNormal">&nbsp;</p>