Airlines know that introducing an Electronic Flight Bag will enhance competitiveness and safety through reducing costs and improving  regulatory compliance. However many airlines (and many EFB solution vendors) neglect the most difficult challenge when introducing an EFB: preparing the ground systems to manage and control the information required on the EFB. If airlines are not managing the digital information they need on the ground, how can they expect to manage it in the air? Without properly addressing this challenge, airlines risk spending a lot of money on an EFB solution without seeing the benefits they are expecting.

To address this, Arconics have built on their information management experience with a number of major airlines to create one of the most comprehensive EFB ground system solutions on the market today. The solution includes:

• EFB Ground Manager, to precisely control and manage software and data on the airline's EFBs
• portal systems for pilot briefing, flight operations information management, and maintenance & engineering information management
• a manual management system that automates the revision and publication of Airbus and Boeing SGML manuals for internet, EFB, CD, or paper

Arconics enables airlines manage and control the data they need to ensure their EFB system is a success.

Arconics - EFB Ground Manager  - enables airlines to precisely manage, track and control manuals, charts, performace databases, forms, as well as software application updates to be published to EFB. In addition, the system enables pilot briefing data such as flight plans, weather, NOTAMS etc to be made available in an electronic flight folder for use in-cockpit.

The EFB Ground Manager maintains a database archive which provides a snapshot of any information that is in transit to, has been installed on, or which came back from an EFB on any given date.

The system provides customised graphical views of EFB data according to the user's role so that the user can see the status of the EFB information for which they are responsible:

• IT staff publish software updates for operating system upgrades or virus protection as well as monitor the system for EFB errors and exceptions
• technical publishers can view and publish manual updates
• flight planning staff manage pilot briefing data
• flight ops managers can monitor and track overall system status
• regulatory auditors can interrogate the system to monitor compliance levels

EFBs are managed individually or in groups e.g. by MSN or MSN group, by base-station etc thus minimising the administrative effort required to maintain a large fleet.