Republic Airways Turns Minutes into Seconds Using GE Digital’s Stamp Annotation Tool

“We click on the stamp button and we’re done.” That’s how Republic Airways’ manager of Aircraft Records, Lori Sikora, describes what it’s like to move from a multi-step records annotation process to a one-click digital signature that moves an aircraft record to the next phase in its journey. Because the 36-member team touches hundreds of documents a day, the new Stamp Annotations feature in the GE Digital Aviation Software Records Management System (RMS) is a meaningful upgrade for the team.

“Each day our records team and auditors manage hundreds of digital documents that require official sign-off. The need to download, print, sign, scan and reupload every record added up to a lot of wasted time and effort,” said Sikora.  

"With one click, the record becomes a permanent part of the asset’s documentation and can be tracked throughout the life of the aircraft,” said Sikora.

Records Management System Streamlines Aircraft Records Workflow

It wasn’t that long ago that Republic’s parts and records management team had to wait a good two weeks to receive records from maintenance crews located across North and South America. The steps required to gather, ship, receive and documents was cumbersome, and the data had aged before it even got to the team for processing.

With a five-year plan to get its digital workflow up and running across its maintenance lines and records department, Republic implemented GE Digital RMS, part of Asset Records, in 2017. RMS is designed to help streamline the records management process using a single, cloud-based solution that allows users to organize, view, search, retrieve, download, and transfer documents digitally, which can help support records compliance obligations.

The airline met its five-year goal ahead of schedule and is nearing its target of a 24-hour turnaround, which starts from the time of maintenance and ends with having the record audited and published to the cloud. The materials department is also using RMS to streamline searches that come in for parts repaired by vendors.

Along the way, Republic has digitized more than 26 million documents, totaling about 7 TB of data. The airline is wrapping up efforts to cross-check records held in long-term storage, including digitizing manuals. Ultimately, Republic will shred a warehouse’s worth of paper documents and save thousands on storage costs.

But digitizing paper is just part of records management, and it was during the process of working with its newly digitized records that Republic saw an opportunity to enhance RMS.

Republic Accelerates Signoffs Using Digital Stamp Annotations

Time Limited Parts Control Manager, Peggy Malanoski, was involved in a large project to bulk publish hundreds of maintenance records to GE Digital RMS and recognized that things could go faster. The perpetual process of pulling each record from RMS, opening in a PDF application, signing, saving, and re-uploading was taking its toll on the team’s productivity. What if there was a way to sign-off on documents from within RMS itself?

“It was taking about 10 minutes to handle each document – and 15 minutes or more for our auditors who had additional steps to print out PDFs and re-scan,” said Malanoski.

The Stamp Annotation feature runs within GE Digital RMS and allows users to choose a configurable, resizable stamp that can be applied anywhere on any image displayed in the software. This stamp becomes a permanent part of the original image and can include both the user ID and time and date reference. It also transfers with files exports, further streamlining the documentation workflow.

Based on an average document handling time of 15-minutes per record, an airline could save around $65K annually by moving from a manual to an automated annotation process. *

“Our team of 36 records managers and auditors deal with hundreds of documents per day, so they’re excited about how the Stamp Annotation feature streamlines their workload. The time savings is exponential,” said Malanoski.

“It was exciting to work with Republic Airways on this innovative feature,” said Nate Hicks, Sr. Product Director for Asset Records, GE Digital. 

“The Stamp Annotation tool will help airlines and lessors operate more efficiently, and we value Republic’s thought leadership and guiding hand in making GE Digital RMS even better,” said Hicks.

According to Republic, there is also an environmental benefit to the new Stamp Annotation tool. Not only is Republic on its way to being 100% digital in 2022 by way of its use of RMS for its maintenance teams, but the airline is also contributing to sustainability with the new sign-off workflow.

“The Stamp Annotation tool allows us to work within the software and eliminates unnecessary printing of documents that existed for the sole purpose of a quick signature,” said Sikora.

*Based on 10,000 documents/labor rate $25/hour