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 COLUMN

EVOLUTION OF

AEROSPACE & Matthew Medley,

Global Industry Director,
A&D at IFS
DEFENCE 4.0

While the interest in 4.0 technologies is clear to The setbacks of
see, the A&D market is still at the beginning of MES data integration
the adoption journey Separate MES is not conducive to providing the

level of vertical reporting required in a modern
Bridging the chasm from interest to adoption relies on positive results manufacturing environment, nor able to provide
from early adopters prospering from deploying the latest solutions. the additional level of granularity and specificity
Many manufacturers still lack the means to exploit “Aerospace & necessary to operate in the A&D manufacturing
Defence 4.0” to its fullest potential, struggling to get critical data sector. Working with complex point solutions
from more intelligent devices and equipment off the factory floor. with heavily customized integrations to solve
these issues and move information across an
Manufacturing Execution Systems help elevate data from the shop A&D manufacturing organization is time con-
floor to the top floor suming to manage and risks of soloing out data
that would otherwise be critical to the overall
production execution, quality control, and KPIs
This is where Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) help unlock the like OEE.
full benefits of Industry 4.0 for A&D manufacturing companies—from
better production execution and quality control, to improved Overall
Equipment Effectiveness (OEE), and its essential role in simplifying The MES lifecycle: From design
the complexity of Defence Contract Management. to manufacturing

MES should be part of one software package
MES helps to deliver efficient and compliant work by digitally exe- that’s not just integrated, but a fully con-
cuting, tracking, and documenting each step in the end-to-end nected piece “out-of-the-box”. It’s software
manufacturing process. MES is a key part of the “vertical integra- with built-in MES functionality that provides the
tion” of manufacturing by ensuring data is accessible from the shop essential digital backbone between the prolifer-
floor to the top floor, continuously fed to real-time dashboards and ation of smart devices and machines and core
enabling control at every level of the manufacturing organization. manufacturing planning software, seamlessly
From the supervisor on the shop floor, to the director of operations, integrating this technology with the higher-level
everyone in the chain has real-time information for actionable intel- software used to plan production. In this way,
ligence.
open interoperable MES solutions enable full
traceability of parts, components, and proj-
A&D manufacturing follows strict requirements ects—from design right through to production
that MES data must match and engineering.

As a pre-requisite, MES functionality should
The devil is in the details for A&D manufacturers, which MES data enable CAD integration, robust, real-time
must be able to provide. A&D equipment is held to an immensely high data collection, and more sophisticated inte-
standard of accuracy and safety—engineering tolerances for aircraft grations through IoT and RESTful APIs as a few
can be down to the thousandths of an inch, and this could just be examples. It also needs to support dispatching
on an exterior panel! The level of quality and precision alongside and shop floor operation, improved production
incredibly stringent tolerances are essential for safety and mission management and tracking, and quality man-
effectiveness. Failure of either of these elements has huge conse- agement processes. Then there’s the need to
quences in A&D wherever the equipment is operating, potentially enable machine monitoring and performance
causing catastrophic equipment failure to compromise mission suc- & KPI reporting.
cess and even put the warfighter’s life at risk.
ASIAN DEFENCE TECHNOLOGY APRIL-MAY 2023 | 37