Sloane Helicopters Ltd

Sloane’s Managing Director – Jeremy Awenat – had seen the benefits of Aerotrac in a previous organisation and wasted no time in introducing it into Sloane.

“Aerotrac is a marked improvement to the previous system Sloane were using. Having previously observed an Aerotrac implementation (replacing the same legacy system) it was a logical choice, giving us greater control, improved integration and far better value for money.”

Financial integration and reporting was high on the list of Sloane’s requirements. Aerotrac has real-time links to Sloane’s accounting solution via an API. Sloane’s Financial Director – Simon Underwood – uses Aerotrac extensively:

“Aerotrac is a vital tool in providing detailed analysis for Month End Accounts and KPI Departmental Reporting. We focus on billing, margins, labour-booking and productivity. Aerotrac provides us with reliable financial data that we can easily reconcile and produces numerous reports that we use for Variance Analysis, particularly at Month End. The ability to store scanned Purchase Ledger Invoices has made Year End Audits much easier, making everything available without going back to the original source. Aerotrac is remarkably comprehensive and gives me the tools I need to be sure that our accounts are completely accurate. Any discrepancies are easy to detect and investigate.”

Providing maintenance services to third-parties is a major part of Sloane’s business. Customer Services Manager – Emma Fiddes – comments:

“We pride ourselves on providing accurate updates and cost estimates to the customer for the duration of the project. Aerotrac ensures we get immediate updates of any emerging work and unanticipated material requirements, which we can then incorporate into estimates. The addition of bar coding for labour provides real time manpower bookings to jobs, which in turn helps to speed the invoicing and estimating process as well as provide the Company with historic data on the time taken to carry out various tasks. Aerotrac is an excellent system, with detailed reports and simple drill-downs that allow us to easily interrogate almost anything related to the job, from linked PO’s to hours expended on any given task.”

As a service centre and distributor for Leonardo & Robinson, materials management is at the heart of Sloane’s business. Materials Manager – Ian Proctor observes:

“The Aerotrac stock management is very good and meets the logistics requirements specific to aviation MRO. The system has provided much better data in terms of parts usage and forecast requirements, thereby improving our purchasing of spares – we know what to buy and when to buy it. The selection of reports is excellent, allowing for the quick production of stats. The Stock-taking module is good and easy to use.”

Sloane are responsible for managing the continuing airworthiness of their fleet of aircraft as well as those of third-party customers. Continuing Airworthiness Manager – Pete Burton – says:

“Aerotrac enables us to efficiently manage a large fleet comprising many different helicopter types. It also allows us to track maintenance tasks, airworthiness directives, service bulletins and component lives in an easy to manage format and carries out complex penalty factor calculations automatically. Printouts enable us to enter aircraft utilisation into the log books and produce Log Book Certificates directly from the workpack data. By using the reporting module we can provide the forecasts and reports required to manage both our fleet and that of 3rd party operators.”

Jeremy Awenat concludes:

“Aerotrac is vital in enabling us to provide a first class professional service to our engineering customers. The system has undoubtedly helped in developing our processing, whereby not only have we improved the customer experience but also helped to improve profitability and cash flow. We look forward to further developments of Planning, Warranty and e Techlogs.”