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Innovation in aerospace

Innovation standards are supporting technological advances, such as drones and zero-emission aircrafts, in the aerospace sector. Aerospace is widely seen as the instigator of technology change in many fundamental engineering and manufacturing disciplines. Our aerospace standards are a key tool for organizations wanting to be able to adapt efficiently to emerging technologies.

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Encouraging aerospace innovation and growth with standards
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Encouraging aerospace innovation and growth with standards

Aerospace businesses looking to commercialize emerging technologies are part of a developing business ‘ecosystem’, and the stronger they can exploit the networks within the ecosystem, the faster the market for their products will grow.  The development of standards can help an emerging technology ecosystem rally Around the issues to promote the successful commercialization of new products. Therefore, standards can make such a difference to the success of innovative businesses: they create a common framework for innovation and establish the ‘rules of the game’. How do aerospace standards encourage innovation and growth? Standards set the framework by defining common vocabularies, establishing the essential characteristics of a product or service, and identifying the best practice within the ecosystems that will ensure successful outcomes. Once these rules are in place, the pace of innovation will be accelerated, and success will be much more likely. Standards also provide a tried and tested framework for taking new ideas from the drawing board or development bench all the way to commercial production. They define the essential parameters, the safety considerations, testing processes, and how to move to prototype and scale-up. As technical complexity increases throughout the aerospace supply chain, standards ensure failures are minimized, and time and money are not wasted in unexpected remanufacture. Key standards for enhancing aerospace innovation BS EN AS 9100 Requirements for aviation, space and defence organizations. This is covers activities including, design, development and manufacture. It can also cover repair but only of an organization’s own product BS EN AS 9110 Requirements for aviation maintenance organizations. This covers MRO activities of whole aircraft, components, and systems Innovation case study: Through-life Engineering Through-life Engineering Services (TES) guarantee the required and predictable performance of a complex engineering system throughout its expected operational life. The discipline considers design, manufacture, maintenance, repair, overhaul, and disposal or re-use as well as cost optimization. TES will be key to aerospace manufacturing productivity and high-value jobs in the circular economy of the future. The TES concept has been in existence in the defence sector since the late 1990s, and the Cranfield TES Centre was established in 2011. TES promote an end-to-end perspective delivering a vision for sustainable aerospace manufacture and infrastructure. It enables a transformation from open-loop linear, transactional or throw-away business models to circular closed-loop alternatives which better integrate engineering with other business functions. Future customers will only buy services: product-only providers will not exist in many technically complex fields leading to a polarization of manufacturing between the throw-away and circular economies. We estimate that this approach can provide cost savings of at least 20 per cent across much of the UK manufacturing economy in the medium-to-long term. The key concept in this future economy is servitization. The precursors of servitization were benchmarked by the ‘power-by-the-hour support’ services seen in aerospace since the 1960s and trademarked by Rolls-Royce in the 1980s. It describes a support service whereby, for a fixed sum per flying hour, a complete engine and accessory replacement service was provided. This allowed the operator to accurately forecast costs and removed the need to hold replacement parts. A fully serviced economy will drive maintenance costs out of the aerospace supply chain. It also means companies won’t need to buy major assets and will just pay for a service that combines the traditional concepts of products and services. In this economy, manufacturers that only provide products and parts will be marginalized and find themselves competing in a race to the bottom. Customers who understand TES will find real value for money from the in-service support of their assets. Many leading aerospace companies are now employing TES, including Rolls-Royce, the Ministry of Defence (MOD), BAE Systems, Boeing and, in the transport sector, Bombardier Transport. Formal standards and regulations will be key enablers for innovation in aerospace TES. They will aid knowledge transfer and behavioural alignment across the service supply chain to accelerate capability development. BSI and the TES Centre are working to establish framework standards in this area building on BS ISO 55000, BS EN 60300 series, BS 8887 MADE4 series, and BS EN ISO 9001 towards an integrated set of behavioural, process and technical standards for TES. Looking ahead, there are practical challenges to overcome around defining a common language for the aerospace industry through the new standards. There’s also a widespread need for changes to organizational culture and behaviour across the aerospace supply chain so companies can adjust to undertake TES efficiently. An example of this is better alignment between previously separate business functions like maintenance and design. Establishing global connections  The commercial exploitation of emerging aerospace technologies is seen today as key to the future success of the Aerospace sector. This is a new kind of high-value manufacturing, and it operates very differently from the traditional supply chain-based manufacturing model. Today’s Aerospace sector is a complex global system, with large numbers of different businesses each operating across a number of industrial sectors. These businesses interact with each other in highly complex and interlinked value chains, trading, not just raw materials and components, but also data and services. The modern aerospace industry is very global in its approach, requiring for instance a wing subassembly made in the UK to fit a wing subassembly made in Germany, interfacing with other parts from Spain, when the whole structure is put together in France. This only becomes feasible when everyone is working to the same rules and definitions for the specification and verification of components and assemblies. In other words, this only becomes possible when everyone is working to the same standards. In this world, success depends on the number of successful connections and interactions a business can establish, and the connections, in turn, depend on interoperability (DD CEN/TS 16071:2010) or the ability to work to the same set of rules or within the same framework. Standards are the closest thing to a guarantee of quality that supply chain partners can give and receive. This makes standards a key tool for Aerospace organizations wanting to survive in the fast-moving, highly complex 21st-century global economy. Add the key innovation Aerospace standards to your collection today. Discover BSI Knowledge As technology continues to advance rapidly in the aerospace sector, accessing the standards your business needs to adapt to these innovations does not have to be complicated and time-consuming. Our tailored BSI Knowledge subscription service provides flexibility, access, visibility and control over the standards and insights your team needs to adopt emerging processes. 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How innovation standards are shaping the future of aerospace
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How innovation standards are shaping the future of aerospace

In recent years, the aerospace sector has faced a period of opportunity and rapid technological innovation. Innovative technologies and manufacturing processes are being developed on a seemingly constant basis and manufacturers are reaping the benefits as aerospace companies look for niche suppliers to help expand their supply chain. In order to shape the future of this sector, the regulatory system is also evolving to improve safety and quality best practices and address some of the key challenges facing the industry. These include the transition to cleaner aircrafts the huge task of embracing digitization, and the rise in the use of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS). Going Green Whilst fossil fuels are still an important part of aviation, the rapid evolution of alternative battery technologies and advances in electrification are set to change the future of aircraft propulsion. In 2020, Airbus even revealed three concepts for the world’s first zero-emission commercial aircraft which could enter service by 2035. These concepts each represent a different approach to achieving zero-emission flight, exploring various technology pathways and aerodynamic configurations, and would rely on hydrogen as a primary power source. In order to rise to these challenges, the aerospace industry will require significant infrastructure changes to meet the needs of day-to-day operations. The implementation of standards will be key to meet these ambitious objectives with increased adoption of technology, digitalization, and mechanisms that encourage the use of sustainable fuels and the renewal of aircraft fleets to allow airlines to retire older, less environmentally friendly aircraft earlier. Eco-design in this sector also requires further thinking about the full life cycle from the design stage to the end-of-life. Standards are guiding businesses on how to manage the cycle and benefit from legislative compliance, reduction in resource usage, wastage, and cost-saving whilst improving their organizational profile and brand reputation: • BS 8887-1:2006 specifies requirements for technical product documentation for the manufacture, assembly, disassembly, and end-of-life processing (MADE) of products. • BS 8887-220:2010 specifies requirements for the process of remanufacturing. It lists the steps required to change a used product into a new product, with at least equivalent performance and warranty of a comparable new replacement product. • BS 7000-2:2015 is a guide to managing the design of manufactured products. It deals with every stage of the design process from product concept through to delivery, use, and end-of-life processing. • BS EN IEC 62430 specifies requirements and procedures to integrate environmental aspects into the design and development processes of electrical and electronic products. We understand the challenge aerospace businesses are facing to adopt innovative technologies. Our tailored BSI Knowledge subscription service provides flexibility, access, visibility, and control over the standards and insights your team needs to achieve this objective. With over 3,000 aircraft and aerospace engineering documents available in our pre-built GBM30 module, finding the right standards for your business needs just got easier. Request to learn more. Increasing Digitization With increased digitization across the entire Aerospace sector, we will also see not only efficiencies in operation but a need for a very different skill set. Technicians will be using VR to better visualize a problem and find the best solution while an aircraft is in flight or find a more efficient way to assemble by “stepping inside” or viewing the aircraft from multiple angles. Add to this the need to remove the trusted paper manual, understand if components are failing or have been poorly installed, or if further training is required, and it’s clear to see traceability is key to information resilience. Being able to call up relevant data by the simple swipe of a finger on a handheld device, and data to be as quickly transmitted back to a single Common Data Environment (CDE), will become more critical. However, much of the vast quantities of data will need to be kept secure. This will be done by standards, which, when implemented, will set a stringent protocol for organizations looking to protect their data. Only then can the digitization of aerospace fully flourish and continue to grow. The Rise of Unmanned Aircraft Systems Commercial, state, and defense applications for unmanned aircraft systems, or, as they are more commonly referred to drones are growing rapidly. As well as widespread photography and surveillance tasks, drones and their accompanying control software are being developed to provide rapid response assistance for emergency medical services. They are also used to detect latent disease in fields of crops for farmers and assess the cleanliness and state of repair of the outside of office tower blocks. The industry has been rapidly expanding in recent years and there are many new entrants to the marketplace. Several airlines are already using drones to detect surface damage, thus reducing the time taken to inspect each aircraft and freeing up technicians for other tasks. To shape this future development, standards will be created so that the industry can use them to set quality benchmarks around safety and reliability. Standards are needed to address UAS flight performance, to make sure drones can operate safely under any environmental conditions. For example, to ensure that batteries do not fail when exposed to certain air temperatures. Also, many drones are connected to the internet to send or stream data. Therefore, the development of drone software security standards will be vital to protect against the potential for hacking; both in terms of taking control of the UAS and accessing the data which it may be streaming online. Quality standards, such as the AS/EN 9100 series, will also have a powerful influence on the future development of the UAS industry from a commercial point of view. In time, as new standards are created implemented by manufacturers, consumers will be able to see which drones are certified to safety and quality standards (and are applying best practices) and which ones are not. Drones represent an exciting and positive development for society going forward, comparable with the rise of both the automobile and aeronautical industries of the last century. Standards will help to ensure that the sector has the protocols to enable them to safely realize this enormous technological potential. Shop aerospace standards to drive your organization’s performance by clicking here.

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