Humana Machina — Human first by design.
Fighting Corrosion Starts With Better Data
Corrosion costs the DoD over $20 billion annually and accounts for 3.6% of U.S. GDP. We’re building smarter, more efficient solutions to eliminate maintenance and documentation inefficiencies — starting from the ground up.
Every day, F/A-18 maintainers stand on the frontline against corrosion, meticulously inspecting airframes to catch and document damage before it spreads. The data they capture is the first and most critical step in holding back the tide—without it, repairs can’t begin, and readiness suffers.
Corrosion is an ever-present enemy. From 2017 to 2020, the Department of the Navy spent over $2 billion combatting corrosion on F/A-18C-G aircraft alone. These aircraft, originally designed for 6,000 flight hours, are now being pushed to 10,000 hours, with corrosion wearing them down faster than anticipated.
The consequences are staggering. In Australia, corrosion-related maintenance reduced fleet availability by 1,381 aircraft days annually, with repair costs doubling over just four years. Every day an aircraft is grounded for unplanned repairs, it’s one less fighter ready to fly.
For maintainers, the battle isn’t just against corrosion—it’s against inefficiency.
The Bottleneck in Maintenance: Slow, Manual Documentation
Every discrepancy on an F/A-18 airframe must be carefully documented before repairs can begin—but the process is anything but efficient.
A maintainer inspects the aircraft in the field, takes handwritten notes, and then brings them back to a workstation to manually enter the data into their databases. To do this, they must recall or look up the exact part name, unique ID, size, location, and severity of the issue—either flipping through references or guessing.
Each discrepancy takes minutes, sometimes tens of minutes, to document, slowing down the entire maintenance process. Engineers than use those subjective written descriptions to do analysis.
This isn’t just an administrative burden—it’s an operational bottleneck that costs the Navy time, money, and readiness.
From Minutes to Seconds: Simplifying Aircraft Maintenance Documentation
With our system, maintainers no longer need to memorize part names, IDs, or manually describe discrepancies. Instead, they:
- Select the model of the aircraft.
- Pick the color that represents the discrepancy.
- Paint directly on the model to mark the issue.
- Hit process. That’s it.
A task that once took minutes or even tens of minutes is now done in seconds—with greater accuracy and zero ambiguity.
Faster and more intuitive documentation means faster repairs.
Automating Maintenance with Computer Vision
We are developing computer vision technology that enables maintainers or drones to simply take a photo, and our system will automatically parse the image into structured maintenance documentation.
No more manual note-taking, typing, or guessing part names and locations—the system identifies, categorizes, and logs discrepancies procedurally, making the process faster, more accurate, and seamless.
This is the future of maintenance: see it, capture it, and let the system do the rest.
At Humana Machina, our vision is to empower people to thrive in the Fourth Industrial Revolution by creating digital tools and processes that strengthen the connection between humans and machines. We believe that by focusing on the human side of the equation, we can help individuals and communities successfully navigate this transition and achieve their full potential.