Pratt & Whitney Canada is seeing its engines enter service on three new business airplanes this year–the Dassault Falcon 7X, Cessna Mustang and Eclipse 500–and the powerhouse has made it a priority to advance support activities that previously would have been spread over a longer time, Maria Della Posta, vice president of customer support, told NBAA Convention News.

It has appointed Standard Aero as a designated overhaul facility for the PW600 series (other facilities will be added as more VLJs enter service), and more tooling, parts and spare engines have been supplied to factory service centers. “At maturity for most engines, the spare-engine stock would be about 10 percent of the number of engines in service,” said Della Posta, “but the PW600 is already at a higher-than-normal number of spare engines. Service is an investment, not a cost.”

An e-learning program for technicians is allowing the customer to do his own preparatory work in his own time and in his own locale before traveling to attend a Pratt & Whitney Canada training center (currently located in Canada, Singapore, Beijing and Germany), and in some cases this has knocked three days off the attendance requirement, according to commercial service centers director Eva Azoulay.

High-speed parts distribution facilities opened in Amsterdam (November) and Singapore (July), and early next year the company will open one in South America–“more than likely Brazil,” according to Della Posta. These facilities have “significant” levels of inventory, and they are geared to supply operators, as well as service centers, swiftly and directly.

Another recent innovation for Pratt & Whitney Canada is the Customer First service center in Montreal, which handles nothing but AOGs and other high-visibility issues. “All the players are colocated–engineers, technicians, logistics people–for swifter response,” said Della Posta, “and large screens that are highly visible to everyone show the current status of an issue, so it’s very ‘in your face.’ We moved about 300 people to make this happen.”

Aviation International News’ annual product support survey for engines appears in the upcoming October issue. It rates all the manufacturers based solely on readers’ responses to a questionnaire.