Traditional business models in the aerospace industry are based on a conventional supplier to customer relationship based on the design, manufacture and consequent delivery of the physical product. Service provision, from the manufacturer's perspective, is typically limited to the supply of procedural documentation and the provision of spare parts to the end user as the product passes to the latter stages of its intended lifecycle. Challenging economic and political conditions have resulted in end users re-structuring their core business activities, particularly in the defence sector, to a recognised need for improved reliability and a reduction in maintenance requirements. This has resulted in the need for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) to integrate and manage support service activities in order to deliver platform availability. The need for OEMs to evolve their design, manufacture and supply strategies by focusing on customer requirement has revealed a need for reconstruction of traditional internal behaviours and design methodologies. Application of organisational learning is now a well recognised technique for innovative companies to achieve long term growth and sustained technical development, and hence, greater market command. This technique focuses on the process by which the organisation's knowledge and value base changes, leading to improved problem solving ability and capacity for action. From the perspective of availability contracting, knowledge and the processes by which it is generated, used and retained, become primary assets within the learning organisation. This paper will introduce the application of digital methods as tools for asset management within the learning organisation. Experiences drawn from three separate bodies of work, carried out at this institution, are expounded here as proposed methodologies for the application of digital methods by which maintainability can be integrated as a key design requirement at the earliest stages of product development. Specific digital tool based methodologies for the integration of maintenance planning within product design are identified and demonstrated. It is also shown that the creation and capture of knowledge through the manipulation of digital assets delivers both the specific design drivers for MRO activities and a universal medium for knowledge dissemination and discussion within complex engineering design organisations.