NETJETS + SPACERUNNER: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY NetJets is the leader in private aviation, and has innovated their industry for nearly sixty years. From the beginning, they have rethought the private aviation industry from the ground up, and offered a more responsive, personalized, and agile experience for their premium client base. But recently, NetJets encountered a big barrier to realizing their vision. To remain innovative and responsive, NetJets needed to be able to quickly collect, analyze, and implement feedback from their clients, their on-plane staff, and their business stakeholders. But NetJets lacked an efficient method to do so. They were overburdened by manual processes, siloed teams, and strict regulations.
THE RESULT? It took NetJets six months to implement a single change to any of their twenty-three different airplane configurations. But today, with SpaceRunner, NetJets has developed a new approach. NetJets can now: Automate, centralize, and streamline many of their core processes. Quickly translate front-line feedback into real-world changes to their airplane configurations. Perform scenario planning that used to take multiple teams 90+ days in just a few hours by just one user.
NETJETS’ PROBLEM: COMPLEXITY AND COMPLIANCE NetJets operates with a high level of complexity in their supply chain, their own internal processes, and the operation of their craft. They face a large number of regulatory hoops to jump through that force them to complete a mountain of documentation every time they want to make any change to any of their twenty-three airplane configurations. NetJets found it challenging, labor-intensive, and time-consuming to complete even the simplest
space and asset management tasks, including how they stocked their airplanes. They could not efficiently make changes to what they stocked, how much of each item they stocked, or where each stocked item was located. These challenges prevented NetJets from making even the most minute change— such as what shelf they placed a single pack of peanuts on—in an efficient manner.
HOW NETJETS WAS TRYING TO SOLVE THEIR PROBLEM NetJets used spreadsheets to perform all of their scenario planning activities related to how they stocked their airplane configurations. They built individual spreadsheets that held all of the weight and balance data that impacted the operational performance of each aircraft. They created cells for every piece of space and asset data, and complex algorithms that calculated the operational impact of a change to any variable. They needed to manually update each of these spreadsheets each time they made a change to any variable in any aircraft configuration. They finally sent the updated version of each spreadsheet to every other relevant department for their review, validation, and adjustments. The entire process was slow, error-prone, and non-collaborative… and it was just the start of NetJets’ challenges.
ONE CHANGE = SIX MONTHS AND 619 MAN-HOURS Every time NetJets made a change to how any of their airplane configurations were stocked, they also had to complete multiple interdepartmental documents. These documents connected to both their regulatory groups’ requirements, and their own internal operational processes.
It took NetJets 619 man-hours — spread over a duration of six months — just to make a single adjustment.
All of these challenges added up to a perfect storm. These interdepartmental documents included, but were not limited to: Documents that needed to be filed with the FAA to dispatch a flight plan. Inventory checklists for aircraft cleaners and re-stockers. Stocking guides used by flight attendants.
To make one change to a single aircraft configuration, NetJets needed to update 70 different documents. These documents lived in nine different systems, and required review and input from 10 different departments. In total, it took NetJets 619 man-hours — spread over a duration of six months — just to make a single adjustment.
NETJETS’ NEW MANDATE: FROM SIX MONTHS TO SIX DAYS Over the last 60 years, NetJets has lead innovation in the private aviation industry. They have taken a rigid, exclusive, legacy industry and made it agile, responsive, and client-focused. Their inability to implement rapid changes to continuously improve their aircraft configurations and services offered was not aligned with their core vision, strategy, and operating principles. NetJets’ internal team experienced constant pressure from their executive leadership to respond faster to feedback from their clients and their crew members. The team had a hard time explaining the complexity of their work, and why it took so long to make changes to their configurations. Eventually, their executive leadership laid down a firm mandate to find a way to simplify the process and reduce the time it took to make a change from six months to six days.
NETJETS SEARCHES FOR A SOLUTION To meet their new mandate, NetJets knew they couldn’t just improve the efficiency of their existing processes. They needed to completely transform their operations. They needed a new tool to streamline, automate, and centralize their space and asset management processes, and to wrap it all up with robust reporting functionality. NetJets scoured the market for a tool that could: Drive faster experimentation with airplane configurations by showing them—in realtime—the material impact of any change they wanted to make to what items they stocked, how many of each item they stocked, and where they stocked them. Give them a single, central, Cloud-based hub for their experiments so every time someone proposed a configuration change, that change would automatically replicate to all aircraft and fleets, and be shared with all relevant teams.
They needed to find a true partner who would match their ambition, and who would work one-onone with them to create a solution that could fit hand-in-glove with their needs.
Automate their reporting and document production to reduce or eliminate as much manual data collection, analysis, and sharing as possible, and to make it faster and easier for a minimal number of people to create compliant, executive-ready documentation. As NetJets reviewed their requirements and began to search the marketplace, they quickly reached a tough conclusion— their needs were too unique, too specific, and too complex to be met by any outof-the-box solution. No one else was trying to do what they were trying to do. They needed to find a true partner who would match their ambition, and who would work one-on-one with them to create a solution that could fit hand-in-glove with their needs.
WHY NETJETS CHOSE SPACERUNNER NetJets reviewed multiple products to review, demo, and start a discussion with. They quickly realized that simple software—like plan-a-grams and other single-focus applications—were not robust enough to solve their diverse set of challenges. NetJets began to exclusively look at larger, more comprehensive solutions. They shortlisted:
NetJets reviewed and demoed each application, and then, with each, began to discuss their unique needs and their need for a highly-customized deployment. During these discussions, NetJets came to see that Oracle and SAP were too big and too rigid for this particular project. NetJets felt they would need to shoehorn their needs to fit into Oracle or SAP’s software, when NetJets needed the opposite— a partner who would adapt their software to fit NetJets’ needs. SpaceRunner offered just that. While SpaceRunner also offered a secure, stable, and scalable enterprise-class application, SpaceRunner was also a smaller, nimbler company that was ready, willing, and able to evolve their platform to provide highly customized functionality that no one else offered.
IN ADDITION, NETJETS SELECTED SPACERUNNER FOR A FEW KEY REASONS: SpaceRunner “got it” NetJets was able to articulate the minutiae of their problems and pain points to SpaceRunner. The SpaceRunner team quickly understood the complexity of NetJets’ needs, and translated it into simple, intuitive solutions.
SpaceRunner’s reporting functions NetJets saw how SpaceRunner rolled up all of their data collection and calculations into a single application, and was able to create custom reports that could automate NetJets’ highest-effort documentation.
SpaceRunner acted as a true partner— not a vendor NetJets appreciated that SpaceRunner performed all operations in-house, and that NetJets would receive direct access to SpaceRunner’s technical teams and senior leadership, including their CEO.
BRINGING SPACERUNNER TO NETJETS From the start, the team at SpaceRunner acted a true partner with NetJets. SpaceRunner did everything they could to figure out how to best translate their robust, flexible feature set to serve NetJets’ unique needs. To develop a real-world perspective on what NetJets was dealing with, SpaceRunner flew a member of their team out to NetJets and embedded him there for a week during their initial implementation and deployment phase. During that time, he boarded each of NetJets’ aircrafts, got on his hands-and-knees, and learned the ins-and-outs of the material realities NetJets had to overcome. SpaceRunner built a unique deployment of their platform, through which NetJets could: Build digital twins of their entire fleet by creating a visual Floor Plan for each of their twenty-three airplane configurations. Populate each with the exact items they stocked, each represented as a Smart Icon. Place Smart Icons exactly where the item they represent would be stocked on its Floor Plan. Embed all data and calculations on weight, load balance, and other material factors into the Smart Icons and Floor Plans. Rapidly, intuitively experiment with new configurations through a visual, drag-and-drop interface that automated calculated the impact of any change.
SpaceRunner did everything they could to figure out how to best translate their robust, flexible feature set to serve NetJets’ unique needs.
AUTOMATING NETJETS’ REPORTS AND DOCUMENTATION After adapting this core functionality to fit NetJets’ unique operating environment and requirements, SpaceRunner rolled up NetJets’ complex reporting and documentation needs into a series of custom reports.
At the end of this process, SpaceRunner created simple one-click assembly and publishing for many of NetJets’ biggest reports and documents, dramatically reducing the time and effort required to get the right data to the right people.
These custom reports included, but were not limited to, NetJets’:
But even more important— by standardizing the data, access, operational platform, and reporting processes for each fleet, SpaceRunner broke a series of functional siloes that had grown inside of NetJets, increasing the speed, accuracy, and thoroughness of the organization’s internal collaboration.
Stocking Guide Weight and Balance Documentation Inventory Checklists For each report, SpaceRunner: Cleaned and connected all of the data that NetJets provided. Developed unique processes to track the incoming data. Created custom formatting and templating to meet the strict design requirements of NetJets’ partners, regulators, and internal stakeholders.
At the end of this process, SpaceRunner created simple one-click assembly and publishing for many of NetJets’ biggest reports and documents.
WHAT SPACERUNNER HAS CHANGED IN NETJETS’ DAY-TO-DAY OPERATIONS Since adopting SpaceRunner, NetJets has experience a range of powerful transformations in how their operate in their day-to-day working life.
REPORTING Before SpaceRunner: Manual report creation Siloed, inaccessible, and incomplete data. Non-standard reporting across the fleet.
With SpaceRunner: Automated report creation. Clean, accessible data. Standardized reporting across the fleet.
EXPERIMENTATION Before SpaceRunner:
With SpaceRunner:
All proposed changes need to be calculated in spreadsheets.
Able to make with rapid, intuitive changes in a visual drag-and-drop layout.
Not intuitive to make new changes and see their impact.
Quick and easy to experiment with new configurations. Immediately and automatically calculate the impact of each potential change.
COLLABORATION Before SpaceRunner: Multiple groups required to produce, validate, and compile data.
With SpaceRunner: Multiple groups can work in SpaceRunner at the same time Each group works with the same up-to-date and accurate data. All calculations are automated and changes to data populate in real-time.
STAKEHOLDER ALIGNMENT Before SpaceRunner: Challenging to explain technical requirements to business stakeholders.
With SpaceRunner: Able to visualize and express the complexity of day-to-day technical operations. Easy to present clean visualizations of proposed changes to aircraft.