The Aerospace and Defense industry is poised for unprecedented growth in virtually every segment: Commercial, General Aviation, Military, and Space. The successful corporations and alliances must rapidly and efficiently form global virtual enterprises that transcend companies, borders and time zones and, moreover, that are compatible with a legacy of diverse and dispersed systems. Siemens PLM Software has developed a portfolio that focuses on the unique challenges facing the Aerospace and Defense industry. It is based on an open, modular, scalable, and web-based architecture with numerous COTS modules or templates for ITAR, CDRLs/SDRLs, Requirements Management, Sourcing Management, MRO which gives you the options to cope with the must challenging program regardless of the current environment. Watch the demo.

More Innovation

Aerospace and Defense companies transform the process of innovation from requirements to retirement through strategic investments that sustain profitable growth and long-term productivity. In order to compete, companies in all segments of the aerospace and defense industry must strengthen their ability to increase productivity and production rates with products that meet customer demands as well as economic and regulatory requirements. This is extremely challenging for an industry that is characterized by low volumes, highly complex products with long lifecycles, extended customer relationships, increased competition and global partnerships.

According to Aviation Week, "the intensely fierce struggle for competitive advantage [in the aerospace and defense industries] will be won by those who can anticipate change and adapt most successfully to the increasing demands of customers who can easily turn to alternative suppliers."

It is no longer possible - or practical - for one corporation to develop, design, manufacture, assemble, test and sustain a major aerospace and defense platform or system. Indeed, most aerospace and defense companies have created virtual enterprises. In this paradigm, virtual design teams and globally distributed operating sites must be able to function in highly disciplined, integrated and synchronized value chains.

The leaders in Aerospace and Defense will be those companies that can implement more innovations across all aspects of their global value-chain and a protracted lifecycle. Concurrently, these companies must transform their enterprise into an agile, virtual Global Innovation Network while shedding the weight of inefficient legacy systems. The winners will be those companies that can do both and while continuing to grow in a rapidly expanding market.

Faster Market

Industry consolidation, compressed time-to-market and the need to increase productivity and efficiency at all stages of the product lifecycle are forcing aerospace and defense companies to focus on infrastructure with an emphasis on interoperability, connectivity and support for spiral development with portfolio management. Super-integrators are emerging, driving outsourcing of development and manufacturing to strategic partners and suppliers worldwide. In fact, the ability to collaborate seamlessly with strategic partners is crucial to winning new programs and bringing innovative products to market.

Moreover, the capital investment and time to develop an aerospace system can be enormous. Additionally, the success of a new product can be significantly impacted by the market entry point. These factors place enormous risk on any program, and reward those who are first to market with products that best satisfy the market requirements and customer’s needs. Faster to Market can mean: greater market share, and a higher return on investment.

The risks of non-compliance with industry and governmental regulations can be especially high for both commercial and military aviation companies. A proliferation of regulatory and environmental compliance issues has become increasingly challenging in recent years. Sarbanes-Oxley in the US and adherence to OEM standards remain important. In addition, aerospace and defense companies must comply with Contract Data Requirements List/Subcontract Data Requirements List (CDRL/SDRL), ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations), RFID (Radio Frequency Identification Device), UID (Unique Identification) and an array of specifications and industry standards.

The role of most aerospace products requires that they comply with an array of standards, specifications and regulatory bodies: FAA, DoD, DOE, ATA, NTSB, etc. Rigorous process controls and requirements management procedures must be followed throughout the lifecycle to ensure that no action or change will under mind the integrity, airworthiness, seaworthiness, safety, or security of these critical systems and platforms.

Resource Optimization

According to independent industry analyst firm Forrester Research, Global Innovation Networks represent a new model for product-focused companies that recognizes the new paradigm in which Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) focus on core competencies (essentially the intellectual property behind their product lines) and retain final assembly, test and potentially lifecycle service and support, while partners focus on design and manufacturing.

For aerospace and defense companies, these networks can include partners, suppliers and service providers which must work synergistically as a global virtual enterprise often for 30 to 40 years. Moreover, prime contractors are now being asked to share the load of in-service support with government agencies, commercial airlines and other third-party service providers. For the aerospace and defense industry, Global Innovation Networks are not an option for the major OEMs and their partners and suppliers, but rather they are essential for sustained, profitable growth and long-term productivity.

Global Innovation Networks, Forrester continues, "enable companies to match their global demand for innovation with worldwide sources of talent and capital. Savvy firms make use of Innovation Networks to bring in new ideas and fresh, outside perspectives as a replacement for stale, vertically integrated approaches to innovation. To effectively meet growing innovation demand, firms must join an emerging market model that lets players co-invent with customers, source and market innovations anywhere, and anticipate as well as respond to supply and demand changes." [Topic Overview: Innovation Networks, December 2005, and Fortune 500 CEOs Embrace Innovation Networks, December 2005. Forrester].

Optimum PLM solutions are designed to be implemented in cost-effective stages, systematically enabling key business requirements and providing substantial rewards along the way. Each initiative gives manufacturers the opportunity to establish the PLM framework, best practices and product-related data that will form the core of their Global Innovation Networks and help them transform their process of innovation.

The infrastructure to build and maintain aerospace systems for 30 to 50 years can be expensive. Designing the production operations and processes to optimize cycle time, quality and performance can greatly improve overall productivity and reduce total costs. Now, this optimization must include also partners and suppliers as corporations strive to create a Global Innovation Network that extends to all points of their market.

Globalization

The goal for OEMs is to strategically share work with their partners as much as possible while concentrating on product assembly, marketing and long-term strategies. The goal for partners and suppliers, on the other hand, is to optimize internal processes while implementing new ways to effectively manage up- or downstream activities. The trend toward strategic sharing of development and manufacturing has greatly magnified the importance of effective and secure value chain collaboration when designing, building and maintaining aerospace and defense products.

Aerospace and defense companies also have a huge stake in aftermarket service and support. Unlike most manufacturing companies, the amount of data that needs to be effectively managed actually increases for aerospace and defense companies when products are shipped. Companies in this sector must maintain and enhance complex products with lifecycles of 30 to 50 years, or even longer.

The sheer size and complexity of aerospace and defense products cannot be overemphasized. A single advanced military aircraft can have more than a million parts, not to mention numerous embedded mechatronics systems (disparate, multi-discipline subsystems), each of which might be more complicated than the most complex automobile. To digitally integrate the design, production and maintenance of products on such a massive scale requires advanced and robust enterprise-grade solutions that can handle terabytes of information within and outside the enterprise.

Global Aerospace and Defense companies must have globe strategies that encompass their partners and their markets in order to gain both economic as well as political leverage. The value-chain for major new commercial aircraft programs must include Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Russia, Africa, and South America. Local sourcing for both manufacturing and engineering has become a pre-requisite. Additionally, service centers are being built around the world to provide first class service and support: anywhere, anytime.