8tree spent the first years of its 11-year existence in intense product development with pilot customers, growing its customer base along the way to today include major blue-chip airlines, MROs, and OEMs globally.
That work resulted in the surface inspection tool dentCHECK, an application-specific 3D scanner that solves the chronic needs of aircraft maintenance technicians (AMTs). It can look at and measure any defects visible on the surface of an aircraft.
“While talking to industry contacts and potential customers, the 8tree founding partners Erik Klaas and Arun Chhabra learned early on that traditional dent-mapping is highly time-consuming and error-prone. This learning curve was the birth of the dentCHECK vision that is the reality today – ‘1-click 3D dent-mapping’ that unleashes up to 90% time-saving while delivering 25x more consistent measurement results,” explained Leonard Buck, Marketing Manager, 8tree.
dentCHECK is a 1-button operation, delivering SRM-compliant go/no-go answers within seconds. Its portable and cable-free design allows the tool to be used at the line, in the hangar, on the tarmac, or in AOG situations.
“The most intriguing thing is the ease of use. dentCHECK comes with a two-day training, and the AMTs are ready to use the tool,” said Buck.
The use case is broadened even more through 8tree’s new dentCHECK-as-a-Service line of business.
“We offer on-demand dent-mapping services for spot-checks, nose-to-tail mapping and catastrophic hail events,” said Buck
With the help of 8tree’s service program, a dozen hail-damage-mapping jobs (Airbus/Boeing) have been successfully completed in the last 12 months.
8tree covers the entire damage assessment process with their certified partners AMROS Global and VS Aviation, including OEM communication and sign-off.
And soon, the dentCHECK will be seeing an upgrade.
“Our next-generation scanner, dentCHECK2, available in early 2024, is a connected device. Built-in LTE enables AMTs on the line to work seamlessly together with engineering colleagues in the office. Once a defect is measured, dentCHECK instantly transfers the results to the customers’ repository, or our 8cloud solution, for additional reporting,” Buck said.
