A leader in international air transport, Air France-KLM operates a fleet of 522 aircraft and offers flights to over 300 destinations. In 2022, the group transported 83 million passengers and 913,000 tons of cargo worldwide.

Air France-KLM helps engineering and maintenance staff keep fleet in top condition

Based in:

Europe
Founded in:

1919
Employees:

73,000
Passengers:

83 million/year

Summary

Challenges

Time-consuming, paper-based aircraft maintenance documentation processes.
Dispersed and inconsistent documentation.
Document version control and traceability.

Solution

Created a single source of truth for group-wide documentation and third-party data.
Deployed an intuitive UI.
Enabled integration with SAP and Salesforce.
Collaborated to influence product roadmaps.

Results

Saved time on document retrieval and management
Ensured compliance with regulatory requirements

Challenges

Time-consuming, paper-based documentation processes
Dispersed and inconsistent maintenance documentation
Document version control and traceability

Alongside passenger and cargo transport, aircraft maintenance represents one of Air France-KLM’s biggest responsibilities. The engineering and maintenance division provides maintenance, repair, and overhaul services for the group’s brands: Air France, KLM, and Transavia. It also offers comprehensive technical support and services to more than 200 external customers, servicing over 3,000 aircraft every year.

“Every aircraft and its components require maintenance, both planned and unplanned,” Dirk Guijt, IT project/product manager for ECM systems at Air France-KLM, explained. “All maintenance work depends on documentation—including maintenance manuals, instructions, engineering drawings, and maintenance logs—which allows our mechanics and engineers to perform their work in the most efficient, accurate and safe way.”

Previously, Air France-KLM kept this maintenance documentation and information in paper format. With engineering and maintenance departments and personnel relying on hundreds of thousands of hard copies, paper-based processes were becoming a significant drag on efficiency. It was difficult for these teams to rapidly locate the correct documentation for projects and to maintain proper document version control and traceability, while paper storage costs kept climbing year-on-year.

What I really like is that we are able to influence product roadmaps. Thanks to the conversations we are having with OpenText, we are able to share our experiences and contribute to making products more useful, both for ourselves and other customers.

Dirk Guijt
IT Project/Product Manager, ECM Systems, Air France-KLM

Solution

For more than two decades, the Air France KLM Group has used OpenText™ Documentum™ as the central repository for all its aircraft maintenance documentation and engineering content, for unrivaled document version control.

Products deployed

OpenText™ Documentum D2™

Implement an intuitive UI for Documentum Servers that allows users to establish a personalized view of the information and tasks that pertain to them
OpenText™ Extended ECM Documentum™ for SAP® Solutions

Combine unstructured content in Documentum with structured data and processes managed by SAP to work with content in context

Services provided

OpenText Professional Services

Improve client and team collaboration, streamline content management, and expedite e-discovery with OpenText Professional Services solutions

Creating a single source of truth for maintenance documents

In 2002, KLM made the decision to move away from paper and embraced digitized content management with OpenText Documentum. After the airline merged with Air France in 2004, the newly formed group doubled down on its digitization initiative, converting paper files to digital content, all stored and managed in Documentum and published with a rendered viewer for maintenance and engineering teams.

Air France-KLM has established two core content repositories for maintenance and engineering, along with one repository for human resources (HR) and one for finance. Documentum now serves as the single source of truth for all engineering and maintenance documents and data and is used by around 15,000 employees. In addition, Air France-KLM uses the solution to store and manage third-party data provided by airline vendors such as Airbus and Boeing, as well as component vendors like General Electric.

Switching on a smarter view

For years, Documentum users across Air France-KLM have relied on various user interfaces (UIs), including OpenText Documentum Webtop. The group is now transitioning toward the Documentum D2 SmartView user interface.

Documentum D2 SmartView provides a modern experience that enables users to increase productivity by locating actionable content among millions of stored documents. Easy, configurable automation increases productivity, consistency, and control.

Guijt said, “We currently have around 70 Documentum customizations; one-by-one, we are moving them to Documentum D2 SmartView. People are really excited about the move because it is a very modern, responsive platform, with support for many new possibilities, including mobile access.”

Deepening enterprise application integration and moving to cloud

Air France-KLM has steadily worked to integrate Documentum with a number of key applications, including SAP® ERP and Salesforce®, used to plan and execute work across the maintenance and engineering division.

Currently, the group is working with OpenText Professional Services to plan a major move to the cloud, migrating its on-premises Documentum environment to a private Microsoft Azure cloud instance. As part of this, Air France-KLM is working to deploy OpenText™ Extended ECM Documentum™ for SAP® Solutions, which integrates Documentum with SAP solutions.

Once deployed, users will be able to access content held in Documentum directly from the SAP interface, within the context of SAP business processes. The solution also allows users working in Documentum to see hierarchies of content enriched with key business data from SAP.

Collaborating for shared success

As Air France-KLM continues to expand and enhance its use of Documentum solutions, the group counts on support from OpenText. Moreover, as a member of product advisory councils, Air France-KLM has the opportunity to meaningfully influence product roadmaps.

“We have weekly meetings with a product specialist to answer questions, check design decisions and make sure we are working towards sustainable, long-term solutions. On top of that, what I really like is that we are able to influence product roadmaps. Thanks to the conversations we are having with OpenText, in product teams and also in the support area, we are able to share our experiences and contribute to making products more useful, both for ourselves and other customers,” said Guijt.

If we didn’t have an ECM system like Documentum, life would be much more difficult. We now store data in a central location and people can find exactly the information they need in a matter of seconds.

Dirk Guijt
IT Project/Product Manager, ECM Systems, Air France-KLM

Results

Air France-KLM is flying high with fast, consistent access to group-wide data, plus improved information visibility, control, and traceability.

Saved time and effort on document retrieval and management

OpenText solutions have truly transformed enterprise content management (ECM) for Air France-KLM. Gone are the days of sifting through filing cabinets and folders of documents to find relevant maintenance and engineering information. Now, digital data has a single, secure home: Documentum.

With the platform offering powerful search capabilities based on comprehensive metadata, it’s quick and easy for teams to access the content they need to carry out critical work. Guijt confirmed, “If we didn’t have an ECM system like Documentum, life would be much more difficult. We now store data in a central location and people can find exactly the information they need in a matter of seconds.”

Consider a scenario where a mechanic is looking for a diagram of a specific airplane component needed for a repair. Previously, locating the schematic would require them to track down the correct filing cabinet, locate the relevant folder, and thumb through many pages. Now, the mechanic simply enters the part number into Documentum, and they can find the right diagram almost instantly.

Ensuring airline documentation regulatory compliance

In the tightly regulated airline industry, data needs to be well-organized and traceable throughout its lifecycle. With Documentum, Air France-KLM can meet these strict requirements with ease. Guijt commented, “Documentum helps us establish an iron-clad, auditable information trail. We can show exactly when a document was accessed as part of maintenance, the version that was accessed, and any associated approvals that were required. This puts us in a strong position to respond to audits and other regulatory activities.”

What’s more, Documentum ensures user and security management with comprehensive access control policies, helping to reduce the risk of unauthorized access to critical documentation. It gives Air France-KLM the robust foundation it needs to connect the right people to the right information, so vital engineering and maintenance work can happen in a smooth and compliant way.