Icon Aerospace · Aerospace
Aircraft Repair Intake App
Bring repair intake into one place, so MRO staff can turn incoming photos and paperwork into a checked work order.
- Industry
- Aerospace
- Build
- Application
- Developed by
- Kingside
- Implemented at
- Icon Aerospace
- Designed for
- The broader aircraft maintenance, repair, and overhaul market
Pilot · installed August 2026
The paperwork and the part kept getting separated
At Icon, a repair didn’t exist digitally until someone created a work order. Parts arrived, sometimes unannounced, with paperwork that had to be matched back to the right unit. Photos were taken after the work order existed, saved to a network drive, and sorted by hand.
Every customer’s repair order looks different. Deciding what carries over to the shop’s records is a judgment call, and a mistake surfaces later as a corrected certificate and an unhappy customer.
Typing speed wasn’t the problem. An experienced person enters work orders quickly. The trouble was everything around the typing: matching, re-matching, and catching errors after they’d already traveled.
Start where the work arrives
The work began on Icon’s shop floor in May 2026, with receiving staff and the people who create work orders and handle exceptions. Their day-to-day work shaped the application.
What we learned set the design:
- One station per part. Staff photograph the paperwork, then the unit, before the two can drift apart.
- Tools people already know. iPads, because new hires can use them on day one.
- A guided shot list: data plate, all sides, connectors, and any damage the customer caused.
- Proposals, not decisions. The system suggests the work-order fields and shows how sure it is. Every field can be edited.
- Look it up instead of reading it again. Customer details and the scope of work come from the shop’s own system rather than being re-read from paper.
- Judgment calls stay with people. Warranty wording and certificate remarks get flagged for a person, not decided by the software.
How the intake station works
- A receiving tech photographs the paperwork and the part on an iPad.
- An AI model reads the photos and proposes the work-order fields.
- The system fills in what the shop already knows about the customer and the job.
- A person reviews the proposal, edits anything wrong, and confirms.
- Only then is the work order written into the shop’s own system, and the labels and routing paperwork print.
Piloted on the shop floor
The application was installed at Icon in August 2026. During the pilot, staff created work orders and printed labels on the shop floor. Kingside developed it with the broader maintenance, repair, and overhaul market in mind.
The work, step by step
Follow one arriving part.
Capture it together
The receiving tech photographs the paperwork and part at the same iPad station.
Capture it together
The receiving tech photographs the paperwork and part at the same iPad station.
Read the photos together.
The paperwork and part photos stay in one intake. A guided shot list helps staff capture the data plate, connectors, and condition before moving on.
Propose the work order
The application reads the photos and suggests fields, drawing on what the shop already knows.
Confirm, create, and label.
Staff check the proposed details and edit what needs attention. The reviewed intake becomes a work order, with a printed label for the part.
What changed
From receiving photos to a reviewed work order and printed label.
Built with
- Guided receiving station
- Read photos and propose work-order fields
When work arrives as photos and paperwork
Turning incoming documents into clean, checked records is one of the jobs we design for.