Since 2008, the main players in the French and European aeronautical industry, becoming aware, over and above their competition, of a common destiny faced with international competition, have created BoostAeroSpace, a collaborative platform with the aim of dematerialising the exchanges between customers, package builders, equipment manufacturers and SMEs.
To begin with, this platform covers the supply chain process, project collaboration and concurrent engineering. The aeronautical industry considers that this is a factor ensuring collective competiveness and solidarity between the majors and the SMEs.
Can this procedure be “cloned” to the railway industry? What are the challenges and the keys to success? What can hold it back?
Debate and exchanges with Pierre Faure, Founder and first Chairman of BoostAeroSpace, the common governance structure for this programme.
On giving the go-ahead for this approach in 2008, the efficiency and competitiveness targets of the chairmen of the principle aeronautical majors were to improve fluidity of exchanges and the reliability of the supply chain, organise collaboration between players and between concurrent sites from the design and industrialisation phases.
Thus, the idea to standardise the processes, the essential data and the collaboration tools was born to make exchanges between information systems possible, reduce non-qualities and shorten the deadlines. This way of working leads to better traceability of decisions and opens up the field to better management of the data required for the life cycle (maintenance and configuration) which is better prepared and more efficient.
Solidarity in the activity line comes out as the winner: this approach allowed the Tier 1 and 2 suppliers to begin to simplify the complexity which resulted from the use of different and heterogeneous tools depending on the principals, and the use of the same tools with their suppliers thus ensuring a “digital continuity” for the principals in the SMEs.
Developed in “light” mode and therefore only slightly intrusive into the partners’ systems, this basic collaboration has been deployed over the last 3 years and in the long term will affect the complete aeronautical supply chain. Today, more than 2,000 enterprises (principals, Tier 1 and 2 suppliers) already use the platform.
What are the challenges? What are the concrete results? Can this approach be used as a basis or cloned for the railway industry? Pierre Faure, Founder and first Chairman of BoostAeroSpace, in charge of this programme, will discuss this subject with the heads of the railway industry at the SIFER show on 26 March.
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