UK Aerospace Industry Research Articles

Twenty-first century supply chain management: a multiple case study analysis within the UK aerospace industry

In recent years, to stimulate the development of Lean Supply Chain Management (SCM) in SMEs, the UK aerospace industry has developed a change programme named ‘Supply Chains for the twenty-first century’ (SC21). This programme promotes the use of a simple standard improvement framework, which defines performance goals and standardises the approaches and tools for continuous sustainable improvement. However, its effective impact on Lean SCM and performance measurement systems (PMS) has not been widely covered in the literature. Adopting a qualitative research methodology approach, this study investigates five significant organisations to explore and contribute to knowledge on Lean SCM and PMS challenges related to the adoption of the SC21 programme. From an academic point of view, the paper highlights the key role of SC21 in accelerating the competitiveness of the aerospace industry by fostering managerial development of supply chain partners. In particular, it highlights the importance of PMS as well as collaboration between supply chain partners for efficient and effective SCM. From a practitioner’s perspective, the SC21 performance award is highlighted as a very successful approach in bridging the gap of differing agendas between supply chain partners. SMEs, with support from their larger supply chain partners, can embrace performance measurement practices to improve their performance. More established SMEs with a headcount of more than 50 employees are capable of developing and documenting strategic plans and more sophisticated PMS.

Flying High? A Study of Technician Duties, Skills, and Training in the UK Aerospace Industry

This paper examines the duties, skills and training of the technicians who work in the UK aerospace industry. It examines how employers in the industry strive to fill technician roles, and outlines some of the problems they face in trying to do so.

Technologies watch exercise: foresight approach enhanced with scientific publications and patents analysis

This paper presents a process that has been used by the authors to identify key technological threats and opportunities facing the UK aerospace industry. A group of experts, all of them members of the UK's National Advisory Committee for Aerospace Manufacturing (NACAM), selected six technology themes that were considered to be emerging/growing and would have an impact on aerospace manufacturing technologies. This study included benchmarking and foresight exercises. Based on the results of this study, a bibliometric approach has been used to examine the prioritisation of the selected technologies. The results indicate that most of the technologies ranked highly by the experts have proved to be emerging and of importance according publication and patents, with some exceptions. Overall, the consensus between the NACAM experts, patents and publications perspectives implies a high degree of confidence in the results.

The importance of knowledge management for ERP systems

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) software provides a coherent integrated electronic business management environment, frequently controlling all logistics and billing for an enterprise. Many companies are now reliant upon these systems for their daily operations; maintaining and adapting them in parallel with their business as it evolves, adding new suppliers and customers. The process of managing the development of the ERP software requires detailed knowledge of systems. ERP systems often become unique to an enterprise and may have tens to millions of pounds being invested in their development. The value of knowledge management (KM) specifically for the management and operation of ERP systems is becoming evident. Managing ERP systems knowledge has been identified as a critical success factor if a firm, its suppliers and logistics providers are to retain control of their business and not be controlled by their systems. Case studies of KM practice for three global organisations from within the UK Aerospace and Defence industry have been undertaken. This study identifies leading practices, with references to the literature, for effective KM of ERP systems.

An intelligent technology watch function for the high technology enterprise

This paper highlights technology roadmapping issues for advanced industries, in particular with regard to disruptive technologies. It examines the currently available range of technology watch techniques and considers the potential offered by the emerging Semantic Web. This paper introduces the technology watch research work of the University of Nottingham's Responsive Manufacturing Group and describes a database-supported process that has been applied in the UK's aerospace industry. It also describes an ontology-based technology watch system that has been applied in prototype form at a major aerospace manufacturer. A method has been developed to evaluate the level of potential threat that an emerging technology represents and to attach a value to a technology watch project that alleviates that threat level. This paper concludes that an effective technology watch function can significantly mitigate the risks that high technology companies face.

Product and Service Complexity and High Performance Work Practices in the Aerospace Industry

Offering products or services with high specification and complexity is often used as a competitive business strategy for organizations that cannot compete on cost. Theories on high performance work practices suggest that the combination of high employee involvement and aligned human resources and industrial relations allows firms to achieve higher performance. This study explores the adoption of such work practices in the UK aerospace industry. The results are based on responses from 225 firms across the value chain, ranging from service providers and systems integrators to component and material suppliers. The study identifies relevant work practices at each level of product and service complexity and discusses the varying needs firms have depending on their product offerings, and the implications on their work practices.

The competitiveness of the UK aerospace industry

Porter's five competitive forces model provides an analytical framework for assessing the UK aerospace industry's competitiveness in this article. Various statistical indicators are used to measure competitiveness, based on published data at the industry and firm level, supplemented with information from company interviews. The indicators include productivity, output, firm size, development time-scales, labour hoarding, exports and profitability. The empirical results of this article suggest that, over the period 1980 to 2000, the UK aerospace industry improved its competitiveness compared with the USA and the EU.

Testing the boundaries of public private partnership: the privatisation of the UK Defence Evaluation and Research Agency

This paper presents a case study of the recent changes that have occurred in the UK government defence research laboratories and the Public Private Partnership process that has created the part-private QinetiQ. This represents a major shift in the UK defence R&D system and the relationship between those defence technological capabilities that reside within QinetiQ and the principal customer for those capabilities (the Ministry of Defence). In addition, the changes have potentially profound implications for the quality of defence-related scientific and technological advice provided to the government as well as that which supports the UK's defence and aerospace industry.

Talented suppliers? Strategic change and innovation in the UK aerospace industry

The 1990s marked the start of extensive re-structuring in the aerospace industry throughout the world. While the ensuing consolidation among prime contractors has been widely researched, the changes affecting the aerospace supplier base have received less attention. This exploratory study focuses on the supplier base and points to extensive re-structuring. Unlike many earlier studies, the lean supply model was found to be a rather powerful influence, with suppliers moving away from subcontractor status and taking on the mantle of ‘talented’ suppliers. However, the bolder predictions of lean supply, in terms of the dynamics of innovation, were less apparent, although there were signs that some suppliers, who genuinely warranted the title ‘talented’, were engaging in valuable process innovations.

The future of the defence firm: the case of the UK aerospace industry

The focus of this paper is the future of the defence firm within the context of the UK aerospace industry and its supply chain. The analysis considers aerospace markets and the aerospace industry in the UK before assessing the future of the defence/aerospace firm as a case study. The paper concludes that its future in terms of the strategic and important aerospace industry is uncertain. The corporate governance of the defence firm will have to change to reflect the hollowing‐out of the firm as the industry experiences significantly less vertical integration. The emphasis of the future defence/aerospace firm will be on ‘buy’ and not necessarily ‘make’. There will also be fewer independent defence aerospace firms as horizontal integration will occur across air, land and sea platforms as well as civil and defence aerospace firms. Indeed, conglomerate integration may even occur with cost pressures and market forces ensuring that merger activity goes beyond defence and aerospace into wider manufacturing industries and, in some cases, service industries in global markets.

High performance work systems and workplace partnership: a case study of aerospace workers

This article provides case study analysis of the impact of high performance work practices and workplace partnership on skilled workers in the UK's aerospace industry. In contrast to assumptions that such practices increase empowerment and participation we find evidence of a democratic deficit in workplace decision‐making and deterioration in the quality of working life.

Early supplier involvement in new product development within the UK aerospace industry

Preliminary findings from survey and casework on the UK Lean Aerospace Initiative (LAI) programme have revealed strong collaboration and integration between customers and preferred suppliers in the area of new product development. The paper highlights not only some of the practices and methodologies that aerospace manufacturers have developed and adopted in integrating preferred suppliers in the product development process but, also, the potential benefits from closer integration at an early stage of the design cycle.

Managing security and trust for e-tender

This paper examines the relationship and management of electronic security and trust for effective e-tendering, as a stage of e-procurement in a UK aerospace supply chain. Drawing from established studies and research on trust, together with semi-structured interviews with representatives of the UK aerospace industry, it is demonstrated that; whilst trust is considered important by the representatives in the customer/supplier relationship for tenders in aerospace e-procurement, security tools used by them within the website combined with the dominance of the customer and the historical relationship between the parties negate the need for trust.

Enhancing technological capability through supplier development: a study of the UK aerospace industry

The current trend in the manufacturing industry is for large companies to focus on core competencies and to outsource more design and manufacture. Combined with the rationalization of the supplier base, this has meant that companies are increasingly dependent on key suppliers to continue providing competitive subsystems and subassemblies which incorporate advanced product and process technology. Suppliers in turn are reliant on their customers for information for innovation. This paper discusses the potential to enhance the technological capability of the supply network through supplier development (SD) schemes. Case studies of SD in the UK aerospace and defense sectors are presented in order to establish whether SD is enhancing technological capability in small companies in the UK supply base. The formal processes of SD are found to have little direct impact on supplier technological capability, but instead have an important indirect effect-primarily through strengthening relevant communication channels. There remains an opportunity for large companies to utilize SD to promote better technology management practices.

Trade Union Strategy and Renewal: the Restructuring of Work and Work Relations in the UK Aerospace Industry

The adoption of new management strategies and flexible working practices in the manufacturing industry has caused a fragmentation of the traditional collective base of British trade unions. Such changes have led some commentators to argue that, in order to survive, manufacturing unions must reject oppositional stances and instead offer support for company objectives, work reforms and partnership relations with management at the workplace level. This article compares the responses of the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union (AEEU) and the Manufacturing, Science and Finance Union (MSF) to the rapid and wide-ranging restructuring of the UK's aerospace industry. The article questions current typologies of union policy and identity and associated prescriptive analysis of appropriate union strategy. We argue that such prescriptive analysis understates the complexity of union behaviour at the workplace level. Our findings suggest that the local traditions of workplace organizing far outweigh the influence of national union strategy. In the case of the MSF, the workplace unions failed to engage with the restructuring of work and were constrained by technical union traditions of sectionalism. By contrast, the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union (AEEU) workplace unions were able to adapt their historical form of organizing, based on work group representation and job control, to maintain significant constraints against managerial prerogatives.

UK aerospace industry struggling to embrace e-business

UK aerospace industry struggling to embrace e-business

New set of universal metrics for the UK aerospace industry

New set of universal metrics for the UK aerospace industry

Stability and control of STOVL aircraft: The design of longitudinal flight control laws

AbstractOver the past three decades, the UK aerospace industry has carried out significant research into the development of short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) technology, to enhance the performance and operation of the Harrier aircraft, and for possible application to future aircraft such as those being developed under the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) programme. Some of this research has focused on aircraft handling and flight control for the transition between wing-borne and jet-borne flight. Following on from internal research at British Aircraft Corporation/British Aerospace (now part of BAE Systems) in the mid to late 1970s, further development work has been carried out in the 1980s and 90s in support of the UK’s Vectored thrust Advanced Aircraft flight Control (VAAC) Harrier and Integrated Flight and Propulsion Control System (IFPCS) programmes. This paper contains a short review of STOVL aircraft longitudinal flight control law design, and how basic feedback control schemes can be used to influence the aircraft’s response and hence its handling qualities.

In Sickness and In Health: Exploring and Redeveloping a Measure of Marketing Effectiveness

No matter what condition an organisation may be in, assessing performance finds marketing management's day-to-day energies mostly devoted to matters of efficiency - that is doing things right - e.g. generating sufficient sales and profit, allocating the marketing budget, and controlling the marketing mix components etc. However, an organisation's performance and success depend more on effectiveness – that is doing the right things - than on doing thing right. Indeed, whilst organisations should be both efficient and effective, the starting point should be measurement of marketing effectiveness, for doing the wrong things efficiently is pointless. A review of the academic literature reveals that several marketing effectiveness models exist but that there is no consensus as to which tile best measures are, or even agreement on one model that pulls the various strands into a convincing whole. This paper aims to provide a better measure of the construct, by up-rating an existing instrument's scale and adapting it to include items of structure, culture and learning in a sector specific measurement of marketing effectiveness in the UK aerospace industry. This paper is designed to meet the needs of the practitioner who may not be satisfied with current measures, and the academic who is seeking empirical testing of new dimensions that add to and provide further debate on marketing effectiveness' body of knowledge. Based on a redeveloped scale the findings successfully captured eighteen items comprising marketing effectiveness in four discrete factors - Customer Philosophy, Strategic Perspective, Information Processing Capability, and Operational Marketing Proficiency.

The neglected asset: information management in the UK aerospace industry

Reports key findings of the AIM-UK (Aerospace Information Management-UK) study of the effectiveness of internal research and technology information management systems in theUKaerospace industry and the effectiveness of information seeking and utilization by scientists and engineers working in industry and academia. The main contextual issues included: the relationship between information management and knowledge management; the possible impact of the Freedom of Information Act; collaborative approaches to information resource sharing; the Technology Foresight Programme; the Civil Aircraft Research and Demonstration Programme; the SBAC Competitiveness Challenge; the Lean Aircraft Initiative; the Defence Diversification Agency; and the NASA/DoD Knowledge Diffusion Project. Directors or senior managers, in the 18 companies studied, were interviewed to evaluate how effective aerospace companies managed the information that they had generated and to examine how issues of defence and commercial sensitivities could be reconciled to the wider needs of the UK. Concludes that personal stores of information and discussion with colleagues are still the most frequently used information sources; electronic sources do not dominate either in academia or industry; use of intranets in both academia and industry are at a low level; and Internet use in industry and academia was far lower than expected. The results of the study have produced a strategy for enhancing information management in the UK aerospace sector.