ST Engineering opens tech-focused aircraft maintenance facility in Changi; to create over 500 jobs

[SINGAPORE] Singapore mainboard-listed ST Engineering officially opened its new commercial airframe maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) facility within Changi Airport on Friday (Oct 9). 

Built to meet growing customer demand, ST Engineering’s fourth MRO site in Singapore is also a test bed for new technologies aimed at improving efficiencies and outcomes. 

The S$170 million facility is expected to be fully operational by the end of 2027, and will add an additional 40 per cent capacity to ST Engineering’s wide-body airframe MRO network in Singapore. It is also expected to employ more than 500 people when it is fully ramped up. 

Most analysts project demand growth of 1 to 2 per cent in the global airframe MRO market, “but what we’re seeing on our side is multiples of that”, Kevin Chow, president of commercial aerospace at ST Engineering, said in response to questions from The Business Times. He attributed this strong showing to “customers trusting us and wanting to send more aircraft to us, especially more wide-body aircraft”.

The Changi Creek facility will use artificial intelligence, robotics and automation to complement the efforts of engineers and technicians, freeing them for higher-value work and boosting ST Engineering’s competitiveness.

ST Engineering has a global airframe MRO network that includes the major aviation markets of the US and China. 

The company’s fourth airframe MRO facility in Singapore is expected to bolster both ST Engineering and Singapore’s position in the global aircraft MRO sector.

Singapore is a hub for commercial aircraft MRO and accounts for 10 per cent of global MRO output, meaning that the equivalent of one in 10 aircraft are serviced in Singapore. ST Engineering is a key player in Singapore’s commercial aircraft MRO industry. 

With the aircraft MRO industry typically highly labour and time-intensive, Singapore Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Trade and Industry (Trade) Gan Kim Yong noted at the opening ceremony that the aerospace industry must tap tech to transform how work is done.

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Gan also highlighted tie-ups with tech ecosystem partners such as the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star), which he said is in line with the city-state’s ambition of becoming an AI-empowered economy and global leader in AI solutions. “Such partnerships bring industry and research partners together to develop, validate and scale new solutions from Singapore safely and reliably,” he said.

For instance, ST Engineering is collaborating with A*Star and the National Robotics Programme to test “physical AI” for complex and unstructured tasks in MRO operations. At the new facility, ST Engineering will use drones to aid licensed aircraft technicians with inspection, cutting down the time needed to scan an aircraft’s exterior and also lowering the chances of damage from accidental collision with a mobile elevated work platform. 

The company is also leveraging autonomous driving technology to ferry aircraft parts, tools and materials from storage to the hangar floor, and robots to help sort or store parts and tools. The robot is developed in collaboration with A*Star, in tandem with the aforementioned autonomous driving technology, and ST Engineering expects it to free up about 7,800 manhours annually when they are fully operational.

Chow said these technologies are continuously tested in blocks of three to six months. “We’re targeting that once something has been tested and proven here, we can scale it to our global operations in one to two years,” he added. 

ST Engineering’s Changi Creek facility spans approximately 84,000 square metres and features four wide-body aircraft bays. The first two bays started operations in May this year, and have since worked on aircraft from Japan Airlines, Singapore Airlines and Air India.

The facility was officially opened on Friday by Gan, with the launch attended by about 250 industry executives, including from Atlas Air, Air Canada and Air New Zealand.