In a loyalty-building effort, Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. has tapped SPSS Inc. to provide predictive analytics software.
Sikorsky designs and manufactures helicopters that are used by the US armed forces and other military services, as well as commercial craft operators. As part of its CRM efforts, Sikorsky offers maintenance assurance programs, including the Total Assurance Program, which covers up to 98% of costs for parts and services. To enhance these efforts, the helicopter manufacturer will utilize SPSS Predictive Analytics software to help identify and predict maintenance issues.
“SPSS is one of the few applications where you can integrate all structured and all unstructured data,” said Richard Hren, director of product marketing at SPSS. “So clients can take advantage of softer data that’s sitting around in mail, e-mail and jottings on pieces of paper. That was Sikorsky’s problem — they have transactional data and also softer data, and they needed a set of applications and tools that can affect all the data in one place.”
SPSS’ text and data mining software and enterprise analytics platform will allow Sikorsky to analyze data from the aircraft health and usage monitoring system and flight maintenance records. The SPSS system works with structured data and, through text mining, unstructured data. When combined, these data should show the company the relationship between aircraft use and maintenance and the parts needed, allowing Sikorsky to be more proactive in its customer service.
Sikorsky declined to comment for this story.
