FleetCare: A Portal That Provides Instant Access to Knowledge

To its customers, Pratt & Whitney's FleetCare® customer service portal is much like a giant suburban shopping mall – an easily accessible destination where they can acquire a vast amount of help, advice and knowledge on a convenient and timely one-stop-shopping basis.

The new and improved FleetCare portal is a website designed to make it easier for customers to get information about their engines, said Richard M. Soltesz, the manager of portal and data systems for Pratt & Whitney's Customer Support team. The portal provides customers with real-time access to Pratt & Whitney's vast library of technical knowledge and support services so they can obtain fleet performance, maintenance, repair and overhaul information quickly and efficiently.

The portal can be customized to meet each customer's unique needs and requirements, Soltesz said. Through it, customers can easily access technical manuals and publications, service bulletins and a wide range of customer communications documents related to their engines. They can also search for and order tools or engine parts.

Among its many new features, the portal enables customers to access an engine performance monitoring tool called Advanced Diagnostics & Engine Management, or ADEM, an engine monitoring system that employs a suite of web-enabled software tools that have the capability to issue electronic reports on an engine's health and operation.

Customers can even use the portal to perform repair capabilities searches, a process that enables them to comb through Pratt & Whitney's entire aftermarket repair network to find the closest facility that can repair or service any particular engine part.

The FleetCare customer portal became even more informative and extensive in late October, with the integration of the IAE World portal, an older web-based portal serving customers of International Aero Engines AG, a multinational aero engine consortium whose shareholders comprise Pratt & Whitney, Pratt & Whitney Aero Engines International GmbH, Japanese Aero Engines Corporation and MTU Aero Engines.

"The portal has been improved in a number of significant ways," said Soltesz, whose team has been working on redesigning and improving the portal site for about two years. "Customers can now access everything electronically. We will be less reliant on using a disc or any other device to transfer information to the customer."

The redesign of the portal has produced a streamlined, more user-friendly layout, Soltesz said. He and his team have also made it easier to navigate through the site.

While most customers can access most of the portal's features, not every customer can access every feature. The availability of certain functions and features depends on the level of access based on the customer's contract with Pratt & Whitney.

"We've even made it so that it now only presents information that's relevant to the customer – information that they actually have access to, so they don't have to spend valuable time wading through a bunch of material that doesn't apply to their operations or engines," said Soltesz. "I think our customers are really going to like this."