AgustaWestland, a Finmeccanica company, is pleased to announce its new Fleet Operations Centre is now fully operational. The centre forms an important part of AgustaWestland’s ongoing investment to deliver ever improving levels of support to its customers around the world. The new centre is collocated with the AgustaWestland Logistics Centre at the Avioport Logistic Park, near Milan Malpensa International Airport in Italy. The Fleet Operations Centre has been designed to provide a 24 hours a day / 7 days a week rapid response service for commercial operators who have ‘Aircraft on the Ground’ (AOG) and to manage urgent technical and logistic requests in order to keep customers aircraft flying. The Fleet Operations Centre answers customer’s requests around-the-clock bringing together for the first time expertise from across the whole AgustaWestland Customer Support & Services organisation including Logistics, Product Support Engineering and Maintenance specialists. These multi-disciplinary teams of approximately ten specialists work together to respond to customer’s requirements in the shortest possible time, enabling the rapid return of the helicopter to service.  All urgent day/night requests will be coordinated through this centralized organization which will also fully support AgustaWestland Philadelphia, the primary point of contact for customers in North and Central America. Core to the Fleet Operations Centre is a modern data management system embedded in a dedicated control room capable of providing a constantly updated outline of the world fleet for total event management. A range of solutions from material supply to technical assistance and on-site maintenance support with the dispatch of a rapid response team will be available worldwide with improved levels of responsiveness. Requests coming into the Fleet Operations Centre from customers around the world are being closed in 30 hours on average, down from 38 hours just 7 months ago. Now over 80% of spare parts requests are being closed in less than 24 hours and AgustaWestland is putting plans in place to drive up the number of requests that will be closed in less than 24 hours.

Bruno Spagnolini, COO, AgustaWestland said “As the latest step in our continuous effort to enhance the quality and effectiveness of our range of support services, the Fleet Operation Centre highlights our commitment to all our customers, whether they operate one helicopter or a large fleet. The  advanced systems and performance driven processes that drive the Fleet Operations Centre will deliver unprecedented levels of service to the benefit of our customers.”

Strategically located near Milan Malpensa International Airport, the Logistic Centre where the Fleet Operations Centre is headquartered, is also close to other AgustaWestland facilities located in Cascina Costa, Vergiate and Sesto Calende. The Logistic Centre has recently been expanded with the addition of a new 10,000 square-meter warehouse dedicated to Repair & Overhaul services to reduce the Turn Around Time (TAT) for parts. The centre also supplies spares directly to customers and distributes spares to AgustaWestland Supply Centres such as those in Philadelphia, USA; AgustaWestland Do Brasil in San Paulo, AgustaWestland Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur and Liege in Belgium, as well as the growing number of AgustaWestland Authorised Service Centre. The total number of AgustaWestland Authorised Service Centres now exceeds 70 strategically located around the world and networked for onward shipping of spares to customers. AgustaWestland’s customer support capabilities also include Health and Usage Monitoring System (HUMS) support, maintenance services, logistics, spares, repair and overhaul, power-by-the-hours type programmes and customised solutions.