Maintenance Terminal Function: the user interface for the Boeing 777 onboard maintenance system

A key ingredient to reduction of airline costs, and therefore increased profits, is to reduce the airline´s fleet maintenance cost over the life of every airplane. This goal has become a challenge to meet because the rising complexity of avionics on commercial airplanes has led to an increased amount of information that must be readily accessible and understood by engineers, maintenance personnel, and flight crews in order to repair and maintain the fleet. To help the airlines streamline their airplane maintenance procedures, the Boeing Company, in conjunction with Honeywell Air Transport Systems, has developed the next generation Onboard Maintenance System (OMS) for the Boeing 777. Its graphical user interface, the Maintenance Terminal Function (MTF), provides much more capability and flexibility in the presentation of fault and performance monitoring data as compared to previous OMS systems that use a Control & Display Unit (CDU) to display information