In September 2023, a false documentation scandal sent shockwaves throughout the global aviation industry. Investigators quickly discovered that thousands of used parts that were being represented as new—backed by faked documents—had been built into global airplane fleets. Some of the world’s highest-volume passenger airlines were affected.
The scandal highlighted an urgent need for innovative solutions to the aviation industry’s counterfeit documentation problem. Even standard-setting products such as CFM engines proved vulnerable, creating a challenge that threatened the industry’s integrity and pose a serious issue for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).
Blockchain technology has been touted as a potential solution. Its unique features, including immutability, timestamping, and decentralization, have appealing applications. However, several issues pose obstacles to using blockchain in aviation, potentially undermining its utility in the industry—and positioning change management as a superior near-term alternative.
This article explores the aviation industry’s false documentation problem in the context of change management strategy. It also examines both the promise and pitfalls of blockchain in aviation, highlighting the urgent need among industry stakeholders to take proactive change management measures with respect to safety and document authentication.
The Pervasive Threat: Counterfeit Documentation in Aviation
Aviation industry experts widely believe the high-profile scandal that unfolded in September 2023 represents only one part of a larger problem. Unscrupulous manufacturers and aftermarket suppliers use false documentation for the nefarious purpose of misleading buyers parts as genuine; these activities pose serious threats to the integrity of the aviation industry—and, more importantly, to the safety of passengers and crews.
Counterfeit documentation and bogus airplane parts are not new problems. The United States Department of Defense had been sounding the alarm about counterfeit parts and false documentation for the better part of a decade before Bloomberg broke news of the recent scandal. Companies that produce and distribute bogus parts use sophisticated and duplicitous methods to defraud buyers. AOG Technics, the United Kingdom-based company at the center of the 2023 scandal, is alleged to have used tactics including convincing but fake social media profiles of senior company leaders to run a multimillion-dollar counterfeit parts scam out of virtual offices in London. The fraud operation provided fake verification for parts used in CFM engines.
A month after Bloomberg broke the story, more than 120 jet planes around the world were found to have been affected. Multiple major airlines were forced to pull the impacted planes from their active fleets. Beyond the obvious safety concerns, the false documentation scandal also carries serious economic consequences. Airlines must absorb the high costs associated with remediating the issue; passenger fares could rise as a result.
Aviation leaders cited blockchain technology in discussing remedies as a potential avenue to reliable document authentication. However, blockchain in aviation carries multiple inherent limitations that create practical challenges with respect to document verification. As such, blockchain technology may not be the proverbial “silver bullet” the industry is looking for.
Hitting the Wall: Recognizing Blockchain’s Shortcomings in Aviation
With respect to document authentication, blockchain technology offers multiple advantages. It is secure, carries low operating costs, and uses decentralized models to preserve document immutability. Thus, it is quite trustworthy—once documents enter the blockchain, any efforts to alter or tamper with them will generate readily detectable digital traces. This has obvious advantages with respect to fighting false documentation.
However, blockchain technology also has its shortcomings—shortcomings that ultimately may inhibit the practicality of blockchain in aviation. For example, while operating costs are low, implementation costs are high. Aviation companies seeking to implement blockchain technologies into their operations face significant up-front expenses.
Additional drawbacks include:
- High costs of implementation
- A lack of adoption in the industry
- Competing solutions and protocols
- One common platform which is difficult to implement across various stakeholders
- A lack of experienced software engineers in the industry,
While the immutability of digital documents in the blockchain is often cited as an advantage, it can also create problems. Technicians must correct documents that were not originally placed on the blockchain that contain errors by completely rewriting the associated code—a time-intensive and costly process.
In addition, the regulatory future of blockchain technology also remains uncertain. It is also important to note here that a digital solution is not the complete answer, but it is a good start. A tie between the physical world and the digital tracking must also happen to completely eliminate the issue of counterfeit parts, not just counterfeit documentation. Thus, strategies based on change management may offer a more feasible path over the near term.
The Role of Change Management in Combating False Documentation
Change management focuses on developing and proactively applying systems for identifying risks and hazards, and taking preemptive steps to mitigate them. With the global airline industry in the midst of a digital shift, change management offers unique opportunities with respect to records automation.
Formalized change management processes take systematic approaches to risk mitigation. With respect to false documentation, change management processes can integrate comprehensive safeguards to augment the reliability of document verification processes. They also offer inherent support for supply chain diversification while adding transparency to regulatory compliance and quality assurance processes—all of which can address the problem of counterfeit documentation in meaningful ways.
Change management can, therefore, dramatically improve passenger safety while protecting the integrity and reputations of airlines and component manufacturers. It engages personnel at multiple levels, from organizational leadership to rank-and-file employees. As people throughout the organization build their awareness of the dangers of false documentation, specially developed systems for addressing document counterfeiting come to function as low-cost, high-impact solutions.
Implementing Change Management Strategies to Prevent Counterfeit Documentation
Change management best practices center on using qualitative and quantitative analyses to identify risks, determine the level of organizational tolerance for those risks, and create comprehensive plans for minimizing risks and their potential impacts. While change management has a reputation for being cumbersome and beset with bureaucracy, it doesn’t have to be. Some key efficiency strategies include:
- Keeping organizational approval processes to a minimum whenever possible
- Automating digital and technological change management systems
- Choosing tech tools that offer easy, seamless integration to facilitate a smoother transition
Businesses adopting change management to address false documentation in the aviation industry can also collaborate with regulators and other stakeholders. OEMs can work toward stronger ties with regulatory bodies and industry peers to create effective frameworks for sharing best practices and information about known and emerging threats.
By establishing a clear policy direction and facilitating open communication, organizational leadership can directly support the success of change management initiatives. As a general methodology, organizations can base their change management system development on the following template:
- Perform a comprehensive assessment of all operations to identify vulnerabilities
- Establish clear objectives and timelines for addressing them through change management
- Use pilot projects to test solutions before rolling out new organization-wide systems
- Limit the initial scope of the project to one particular area (such as documentation verification) before applying it on a wider basis
- Communicating internally regarding results, benefits, and potential refinements
Businesses in the aviation industry can further support change management for addressing false documentation and other organizational risks by providing training programs, updating workforces about known and emerging threats, and creating organization-wide communication channels that empower every employee to express their insights, ideas, suggestions, and concerns.
Partner with ProvenAir to Enact Effective Organizational Approaches to Change Management
The 2023 counterfeit documentation scandal did much more than generate shocking headlines. It also highlighted an urgent need for change management solutions powered by advanced automation technologies. As a company, ProvenAir encounters paperwork inconsistencies on a regular basis, and these are not usually nefarious in nature. Usually, they stem from human error caused by the antiquated manual processes. They are regular enough to show just how important it is that the industry makes a change and starts with digitization strategies to improve overall results.
ProvenAir offers advanced expertise in change management technology for the aviation industry. Built on a disruptive, technology-focused model, ProvenAir drives the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model into a deeper realm of sweeping technological innovation. Reach out to discuss solutions to your organization’s unique challenges and leverage ProvenAir’s transformative capabilities today.