Can complex processes such as maintenance and repair be automated? What is actually the difference between automatization and automation and where are future fields of application? This was the topic of the last ZAL Discourse “Automation in Aviation” on 25.10.2022.

Compared to the automotive industry, automated processes are more difficult to establish in aviation, explained Dr. Felix Berteloot, Deputy Head of Automation at ZAL GmbH at the beginning of the discourse. Reasons for this are lower unit volumes, but also very high safety standards. Disruptive technologies in production or maintenance are rarer, and improvements often come in small increments. Guest speakers Dr. Jörn Biedermann from the DRL Institute for System Architectures in Aviation and Prof. Dr.-Ing. Alexander Fey, Institute Director for Automation Technology at the HSU Hamburg, used practical examples to show where automation can come into play in the field of maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO). For future developments, it is crucial that automation is already considered during the design process, explained Dr. Jörn Biedermann.

The event was completed with a look into the future by Mark Etzold, Head of Automation at ZAL GmbH, about modern technologies that could solve the challenges in the future, both for SMEs and for large players in the aviation industry