C3.ai, a leading enterprise artificial intelligence (AI) software provider for accelerating digital transformation, today announced an agreement with the United States Air Force (USAF) Rapid Sustainment Office (RSO) to deliver and deploy the C3 AI® Suite and C3.ai™ Readiness to support predictive analytics and maintenance across the Air Force enterprise.
Predicting an aircraft weapon system’s readiness and increasing fleet availability is essential to the U.S. military’s operational success. RSO’s Condition-Based Maintenance Plus (CBM+) Program Office will use the C3 AI Suite and extend C3.ai Readiness to deploy an AI-based predictive maintenance application for the USAF to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of maintenance processes. The RSO will deploy this application to the HH-60 Pave Hawk aircraft weapon system and then assess further fielding to additional aircraft weapon systems. This initiative will also lay a foundation and framework for the enhancement of RSO’s overall AI and machine learning capabilities.
“C3.ai’s proven technology has demonstrated success across multiple industries with its AI-based readiness application for predictive maintenance and logistics planning, making C3.ai an ideal partner to implement RSO’s vision to increase mission readiness,” said Nathan Parker‚ RSO Deputy Program Executive Officer. “By partnering with C3.ai, RSO’s CBM+ Program Office will be able to accelerate scaling AI and ML capabilities across the Air Force enterprise, and combine data science with Air Force operational maintenance, to digitally transform how we maintain our global fleet.”
“USAF RSO is truly a trailblazer in AI and big data solutions‚” said Ed Abbo‚ President and CTO of C3.ai. “Together, we are successfully modernizing and expanding the Air Force’s AI capabilities that will ultimately extend its competitive edge, support its vision of implementing artificial intelligence at scale, and unlock untold billions of dollars in cost savings by increasing aircraft mission capability.”
Since 2017, C3.ai has worked with the Department of Defense (DoD) deploying its AI-based predictive maintenance solution. In January 2020, C3.ai announced a five-year agreement with the DoD to deliver AI-based predictive maintenance software applications for military use. To date, the USAF has supported four prototype implementations of the C3.ai Readiness application to more than 920 aircraft, including the E-3 Sentry, C-5 Galaxy, F-16 Fighting Falcon, and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Lightning II. This latest award represents the next stage in scaling C3.ai’s predictive maintenance solution across the defense enterprise.
C3.ai Demonstrates Readiness Results
In its Annual Report 20191, the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) cited how recent implementations of C3.ai Readiness for the USAF demonstrated the potential for a 3 percent to 6 percent improvement in mission capability, as well as up to a 35 percent reduction of base-level occurrences of aircraft sitting on the ground awaiting parts, and up to a 40 percent reduction in unscheduled maintenance events. The prototype also revealed minimal impact to component part supply chains and identified 80 to 90 parts out of more than 1,000 that are responsible for 90 percent of total aircraft downtime. When fully implemented across all DoD aircraft, DIU states that predictive maintenance has the potential to save the Department up to $5 billion annually.
C3.ai’s core technology is the C3 AI Suite – a scalable, production-ready enterprise AI platform that enables organizations to rapidly design, develop, and deploy enterprise-scale AI applications on any public or private cloud environment. The C3 AI Suite platform allows the USAF to integrate and unify large, fragmented data sets from disparate data stores and sensors, making those data available for use by machine learning algorithms for insights that improve operations and provide situational awareness. Its applications are configurable for a variety of capabilities beyond predictive maintenance, including AI-based intelligence data fusion, clearance adjudication, insider threat, improved logistics, supply network risk identification, and operational support.
In addition to building bespoke applications and extending C3.ai Readiness using the C3 AI Suite platform‚ RSO will work to customize and extend the functionality of current pre-built applications such as its CBM+ analytics tools using C3.ai’s portfolio. C3.ai and RSO will also establish a Center of Excellence to train RSO data scientists‚ developers‚ and business analysts to implement AI applications‚ ensuring fast time to value.
Learn about how C3.ai is improving mission capability with AI-driven maintenance operations at https://c3.ai/products/c3-ai-readiness/.
