FeaturePrint® by Alitheon® is software that ensures the traceability and authentication of aerospace components in the supply chain.

Alitheon comes from the Greek “alithea,” which means truth. The company aims to eliminate fraud and counterfeit aerospace parts through technology that can serialize, authenticate, identify, and trace objects with a picture. In the aerospace industry, this is especially critical because of rogue players who alter original paperwork, changing authentication for the time of use, production, and the origin of parts. Quality through authentication is mission-critical for the industry. 

Roei Ganzarski, former head of regional players magniX and Eviation, is leading the charge for Alitheon. Supporting players include Alitheon’s Mark Tocci, head of technology, credited as the brainchild behind the product, and Jason Reed, president of Digital Innovation Group and GATES SPAH, a spinoff of GA Telesis, a marketplace partner. 

Ganzarski said Alitheon’s team of about 20 is intelligent and passionate. He said regarding their name, “We tell the truth based upon this item you are holding.” As a software company, the technology is the software they leverage to individualize products through data from photos, which can be saved as non-fungible tokens (NFT) in a blockchain format. Ganzarski said that any product with high consequence, raw materials, or metals — any product that can be sold, counterfeited, or modified and resold — can be traced. To illustrate questions manufacturers may ask about materials used in the production or assembly of parts, Ganzarski ponders, what is the product’s provenance (origin)? What materials were used, where did they come from, and how long has it been a product? 

“Are the products you are making and selling to your customers what you say they are? How do I know it is real?” Ganzarski asked.  

He said that gray market items are pervasive in the pharmaceutical industry. Illicit players change the expiration dates on prescription packaging, which allows them to be resold, and the incorrect expiration date may be printed on the box. 

Ganzarski said counterfeit items could enter the aerospace market through altered paperwork on the parts. For example, he said that installing used aircraft engine parts with changes to the paperwork to make them appear new, means the part “may already be past its fatigue or stress limits at installation, creating a huge risk in using it.” 

He added that fake titanium has also been used to produce parts. He suggested that this is why the authentication and serialization of parts is so critical. Things like codifying and categorizing parts, like bolts, for example, must be done correctly, and often are not. “Mechanics can misidentify parts, but if they are serialized, I can recognize this is item 265 and not 266 or 264,” he said, allowing the correct parts to be used in aircraft production, maintenance, and service. 

Mark Tocci came to the company in 2019 and was one of the original product creators. He is a software engineer with a mathematics education and has been involved with machine learning for roughly 20 years.  He said, “On almost any surface, if you look closely enough, zoom in deep enough, you will see detail unique to that surface.” He added that two things might look exactly the same, but “with a good enough camera and optics, you will see differences — there are unique variations in every manufactured product…there is a ‘fingerprint’ on every item that identifies it.” There are aberrations on every surface “that make it unique.” He explained that they don’t use macro cameras, but have special processing through app software that sees data that may be overlooked by an ordinary camera. He noted they use standard cameras and though options with additional light and higher-end cameras have been discussed, they want people to be able to use their own camera phones to take the photos.

He then explained that blockchain can be added to conduct asset verification by taking photos and saving the individual attributes of the item in multiple encoded locations. He said that is the best way to store and trace information that “ultimately protects the consumer.” 

Tocci said they are solving a problem for manufacturers, and basically, the issue that can arise is bodily harm, especially in commercial aircraft applications. But when FeaturePrint is used, “We know that it is the actual part that was produced to the stringent requirements and that ultimately it is protecting lives and safety. There is something energizing and exciting about protecting people from harm,” he added.

On a conveyor belt, parts are photographed in a production line to serialize each item, providing provenance of that item. “We are not generalizing saying we can identify a class of items, but every item is unique in and of itself,” Tocci said. Ideally, the part would be serialized after the quality control phase, according to Tocci, after assembly and before it leaves the factory. He added that this process eliminates the need for labels or QR codes; “The item itself is its serialization,” or identifier. He also noted that humans may still want some label or code on an item when reading and using an item. Tocci shared that Alitheon’s technology must be integrated into production. 

But what about the market for using this software on aerospace parts? How can manufacturers integrate serialization software into their production line in a highly regulated industry like aerospace? 

With GA Telesis’s digital division, Jason Reed focuses on blockchain and Web3. On www.gatelesis.com, “GA Telesis, a global leader in aerospace solutions, is renowned for its unmatched excellence in aftermarket services and lifecycle management.” Reed has known Ganzarski for about a year, and when they met, he liked that there is an ability to read a product and move it to a non-fungible token (NFT) for traceability in the aftermarket. With their company’s blockchain work, they needed a critical visible element of a product placed in a picture format — offered by Alitheon. 

The product is marketed through GA Telesis, and the software with FeaturePrint is a function within their overall customer solution. Reed said, “It’s a unique partnership where they develop their product alongside ours to bolt onto our supply chain NFT. The product will be developed at the OEM level, and the serialization photo will follow the product’s life. Alitheon’s visual product will follow the life of the product.”

Reed said there has been much fraudulent activity in the aerospace industry. He cited a known aftermarket parts company, which used fraudulent paperwork for parts entering the industry. “There is a lot of trust in the industry where we need the paperwork to be correct.” He observed that Adobe Pro can overwrite paperwork, meaning parts records can be falsified. 

With Alitheon’s FeaturePrint software linked to GA Telesis’s NFT blockchains, the parts, as manufactured, are serialized at the end of the process, “From raw material to machining, heat and surface treatments — at the very end is where the part is serialized.” Blockchain is a location in an entirely secure Internet space; you take a non-fungible token and save the information in multiple places on the Internet, and the NFT is the key to accessing this information. No one individual can log in and find that packet. The end user — an MRO or airline — can enter the key once they have it, and it puts the data back together for the end user. Alitheon has a great video with Roei demonstrating use of the FeaturePrint app: www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysQXi9o-3vM – Roei Ganzarski demonstration of FeaturePrint

Ultimately, it traces where the part has been in the life of the part — its records. All aircraft components’ records are provided when an item is sold. “Today that is a laborious process with thousands of documents…tomorrow it is one file with the key and all components,” Reed added, saying, “It can happen in minutes instead of weeks or months.”

Integration into the suppliers’ factories and on the lines will require the technology to be enabled by the OEMs and aftermarket, Reed said. “It could take years for the industry to adapt this technology.” He stated that getting everything approved and adopted can be a long process, “There are process changes, manufacturing, technology changes — but the technology itself is ready to create.” The airworthiness authorities can mandate it to be completed, enabling the product to be in manufacturing, “There is a time frame and cost,” Reed added. 

Summary

Down the road, Tocci said, “We hope to protect any object anywhere, at any time.” They have over 50 issued patents for the product and more patents pending.  Ganzarski envisions the technology evolving so that software can decipher each part placed on a plane, that it was the correct part, in the proper location, and used according to the design. “Using a system like ours as a trigger for physical parts means fraud and identification errors will never happen,” he concluded. 

Contact Information

Alitheon 

2821 Northup Way #200, Bellevue, WA 98004Phone: (530) 618-7884

www.alitheon.com

GA Telesis – Digital Innovation Group
www.gatelesis.com/digital-innovation-group/ 

Ft. Lauderdale, Florida

GA Telesis Headquarters

Phone: (954) 676-3111