Comparesoft Podcast

Dr Sajjad Hussain, Head of Maintenance at BOS Aerospace (BOSA), joins the Comparesoft Maintenance Management Podcast to delve inside aviation maintenance, where aircraft turnarounds can be as short as 25 minutes and every signature carries legal accountability. Sajjad has spent 26 years in aviation engineering. He started as a trainee engineer at Monarch in 2000, spent 14 years in the Middle East with Etihad Airways and Oman Air, then led maintenance operations at Bombardier, Ryanair, Wizz Air and British Airways. Today he is BOSA's Head of Maintenance and regulatory post holder, leading a third-party line maintenance operation that acts as the engineering department for around 40 airlines at airports across the UK and Ireland. In this episode, Sajjad talks about: How line maintenance differs from base (hangar) maintenance, and why the MEL (Minimum Equipment List) matters on every turnaround What a third-party aviation maintenance provider does for airlines Why no single aviation maintenance system covers everything How BOSA runs MRO Pro, Centrik and separate HR and finance tools The double data entry problem between airline systems and MRO systems Getting value from a maintenance system after it has been selected and implemented Where MRO software performs well (invoicing, parts traceability, tooling, authorisations) and where planning falls short The operational dashboard and cross-training tool he built with basic coding and AI Predictive maintenance, digital twins and why AI cannot sign a certificate of release to service

Damien O'Neill, Group Head of Engineering (Maintenance) at Biffa, joins the Comparesoft Maintenance Management Podcast to unpack CMMS selection in the waste and recycling industry, across more than 100 sites and roughly £1bn of assets that keep the UK's recycling infrastructure running. Drawing on 12 years as a Royal Navy marine engineer and maintenance leadership roles at EMCOR, Doncasters and ATS, Damien explains why he is reviewing his CMMS while it still works, why the technician's experience is too often an afterthought in system selection, and why the data you feed a system matters more than the system itself. In this episode, Damien talks about: What CMMS selection looks like in waste and recycling maintenance Scaling a maintenance operation across 100+ sites through acquisition Why the right maintenance manager matters more than the data or the process The EOS meeting cadence and KPIs behind a national maintenance team Why proactive system review beats waiting for a CMMS to break Why the technician interface, not the database, is the real differentiator Building the "golden data set" before you move to a new CMMS Winning technician adoption with one system and one linear workflow Where AI genuinely helps in large-scale asset history and fault finding Making the case for maintenance investment to a cost-focused business

Doug Hanson, a former IT and ERP Director with a 40 year career across aerospace and defence manufacturing, joins the Comparesoft ERP Podcast to explain what more than 25 ERP deployments taught him about selecting, implementing and adopting the right system. Starting as a Fortran programmer at McDonnell Douglas back when it was still called MRP II, Doug went on to lead SAP and Oracle deployments at Honeywell Aerospace and B/E Aerospace. Now retired, he talks openly about why so many ERP projects fail, and what leaders must get right before they sign a contract. Full episode: https://comparesoft.com/erp-software/podcasts/sap-oracle-aerospace/

Jaco Schutte, ERP Manager at the Alpine Formula One Team, discusses selecting, implementing and running Microsoft Dynamics ERP inside Formula One. Jaco leads the technical and functional design of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations for a team of roughly 900 people. He explains why an F1 team is really a manufacturing business, how the system was selected, why he aligns processes to the software before customising, how his team connects PLM and ERP in real time, and why adoption depends on people, not technology.

Israel Arrieta, Senior Maintenance Manager at TruStile Doors, joins the Comparesoft Maintenance Management Podcast to unpack MTO maintenance management: what it takes to keep a made-to-order manufacturing plant reliable when almost every product coming down the line is different. Drawing on 10 years in the US Navy as an aviation structural mechanic, then maintenance leadership in medical device manufacturing and pharmaceuticals, Israel explains how he runs a 24/7 operation across roughly 900 maintainable assets and 1000 custom doors a day with CMMS Software. 🔗 Listen and read more: https://comparesoft.com/cmms-software/podcasts/made-to-order-manufacturing/