Today’s fast-paced world of rapid technology development, dubbed the Fourth Industrial Revolution, presents unique difficulties for tightly regulated industries like defense and aerospace.
Yet, these industries aren’t immune to the slings and arrows of supply chain variability. Here are three strategies for overcoming defense and aerospace supply chain challenges.
Commit to a Culture Shift
Steady yourself, because we’re starting with perhaps the most important strategy of all: a culture shift — and that doesn’t come easy. Of all the challenges organizations face when making a push to become more agile, transforming the culture and “standard” ways of working is cited as being the most prevalent — more than twice as common as any other challenge.
Learning to “think agile” — and getting the rest of the organization to as well — requires a concept known as reframing, viewing the reality of a situation in a different, more productive light. As McKinsey describes it, “Agile is a way of working that harnesses change as a competitive advantage, rather than a liability.”
Agile is particularly important for the military and aerospace sectors, which must remain competitive in the global market for national security. Mac Thornberry, former Texas congressman currently serving as a board member of CAE USA, a member of the Defense Innovation Board, and a senior adviser to the Silicon Valley Defense Group, urges that “To truly innovate and remain at the forefront of global competition, we must work together to drive collaboration and build agile organizations that embrace risk. The culture we create will mean the difference in success and failure and ultimately the security of our nation.”
Design with Intent
Aerospace companies need more than a can-do attitude, they need designs that are built to evolve with new technological innovations. “They need the ability to add a new capability without a wholesale replacement of the existing cockpit,” says Chris Polynin, Director of Product Management at L3Harris Commercial Aviation Solutions. “Our products, for example, are designed to play well with others, utilizing standard interfaces.”
Along with standard interfaces, field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) offer a software solution to solving hardware upgrade problems. FPGA microchips can be completely reprogrammed by users, making them a powerful tool when changes need to happen fast. Radiation-tolerant FPGAs are particularly making headlines for defense applications. In September 2023, Mercury introduced the SCFE6933, the first space-qualified FPGA using AMD’s Xilinx Versal AI core. Shortly thereafter, Microchip Technology Inc.’s PolarFire FPGA was awarded the Qualified Manufacturers List (QML) Class Q designation for integration into space flight systems.
Embrace Data
With a seemingly infinite volume of data capture, data-driven decision-making may seem like an easy strategy to implement, yet some industries are still slow to fully embrace adoption. Longstanding precedents of lengthy qualification and funding procedures along with stringent performance standards can make leadership hesitant to fix something that isn’t broken.
But unused data is money left on the table, and it’s a broken system that’s not making use of its most valuable resources. Research projects that advance the digital maturity of the aerospace aviation and defense value stream could unlock $20 billion in annual revenue. The engines alone onboard a Boeing aircraft can generate up to 40 terabytes of data per hour; in addition to in-flight information crucial for pilots and dispatch, this data can also help stakeholders with making decisions related to performance, predictive analytics, upgrades, and sourcing.
One particularly promising implementation of big data in aerospace and defense is in digital twins, software replicas of engineering systems. Digital twins are powerful tools for everything from prototyping and testing, to performance monitoring for predictive maintenance and efficiency optimizations. Internet of Things (IoT) technology can mirror real-time aircraft conditions on the digital twin platform for risk-free testing and lower-cost upgrades. In fact, 75% of Air Force executives have cast the vote of confidence in favor of using the digital twin concept.
Today’s electronic supply chain is volatile for everyone with a stake in the market. While general best practices for preparing for market shortages will help, project leaders in defense and aerospace must advocate for a strategically agile culture, flexible designs, and big data harvesting to safeguard the future of their products.
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