It could be said Systems Engineering and Aviation were made for each other

The invention of heavier-than-air flight has made the world smaller, easier to reach, particularly after 1950.  As aircraft capability has grown, the machines themselves have become, as we shall see, vastly more complex. 

The aerospace sector manufactures products that can be used in a variety of different contexts:

• Civil aerospace sector using aircraft and helicopters to transport passengers and goods
• Defence Aerospace sector extending from Civil Aerospace use case to include military applications (weapons and defence uses)
• Commercial Aerospace where aircraft and helicopters act as couriers

In addition to these products, multiple related infrastructures, subsystems, and personnel provide key support for Aerospace products.

Why Aerospace matters

The UK Aerospace sector in 2021, was estimated by the main UK aerospace trade association ADS as having an annual turnover in the region of £22.4 billion. £15.2 billion of this was provided by exports of UK aerospace products. In addition to which, the UK aerospace sector had 111,000 direct employees. The EU Civil Aerospace sector in 2020 (non-defence related), was estimated by the main EU aerospace trade association, ASD as having an annual turnover of €99.3 billion, with exports of €88.3 billion and employing more than 371,000 people.

Systems Engineering in Aerospace

Aircraft contain vast amounts of finished parts, which may be formed from several other lower-level finished components. These are sourced from between hundreds up to thousands of different suppliers, drawn from multiple sectors located in numerous countries.

To take one example - the Airbus A380 is one of the world’s largest civil aerospace passenger aircraft. It consists of four million individual components, of which 2.5 million were sourced from 30 countries. With such complexity, Systems Engineering (SE) plays a key role in the design, monitoring, and control of super diverse Aerospace supply chains. The table shows some examples (non-exhaustive) of the multi-year, multi-phases of activity related to a new Aerospace product, highlighting some key tasks where SE plays a pivotal role, from initial conception, design, and testing phases through to the new product being released onto the marketplace:

Aerospace Systems Engineering Lifecycle Activities Outline

Source: Ramon Kagie on Unsplash

Challenges in applying SE in Aerospace

The increasing dependence on data and systems and the increasing need to demonstrate safe aerospace operations mean SE will play an increasing role in aerospace products and services.

Aerospace OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) historically designed and made most of their products internally. Despite lengthy lead times for the design and manufacture of its products, the Aerospace sector has remained on a constant upward trajectory. As the tempo of globalisation increased from the 2000’s onwards, the Aerospace sector initially resisted outsourcing the manufacturing of products to external, lower cost facilities in the Far East. By the mid-2000's, outsourcing to east Asia had become the norm, allowing Aerospace companies to meet the ever- increasing demand for products, whilst maintain price competitiveness with each other. There was a lack of ‘whole system’ methodology in terms of analysing both the supplier and all the sub-tiers that provide materials, products to the supplier under assessed. The adopted assessment methodology was more focused on supplier certification, ability to supply products in the right volumes, low cost, up to assuming a level of quality, which resulted in these key incidents:

• Kobe Steel Scandal: In 2018 a very reputable Japanese steel manufacturer adopted a process that supplied initial shipments of metal at the precise customer requirements and certified to agreed quality standards to Aerospace, Automotive and Rail sectors, followed by sourcing much inferior quality metals from non- approved suppliers as a standard business practice
• Boeing Dreamliner Scandal: Numerous incidents in the development cycle of the Boeing 737 max: (a) changes made to the ‘safety cage’ software of the aircraft by cheaper, inexperienced replacement developers, without controlled processes. This contributed to two major air crashes; (b) Airworthiness authorities around the world grounded all Boeing Dreamliner 737 Max, resulting in service disruption, regulatory fines, loss of revenue and a damaged reputation for Boeing
• China Forced Labour: Persistent international media reports and studies relating to the forced camps holding Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang region of China, being used to produce materials (aluminium, cotton, silica), and resultant products which are widely used by multiple industry sectors, and then sold to vast numbers of global consumers. This resulted in the: (a) 2021 US Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act
(UFLPA) which came into effect in June 2022, banning all products from China’s Xinjiang region, this resulted in major Aerospace supply chain disruptions; (b) in 2022, Europe has proposed a similar but much broader type a regulation, whilst not directly naming China, covers potentially banning any product entering Europe, as either imported products from such regions or exported where EU companies have consumed those products into more complex objects.

These examples demonstrate how SE was not applied early enough in the product development. Instead, much simpler initial reviews were conducted. A ‘Whole Systems’ methodology would have identified potential risks much sooner.

Aerospace is a global production and service operation industry that is under pressure to reduce costs and delivery timescales. It is under economic pressures to maximise efficiencies alongside regulatory, safety and service quality pressures to improve performance. SE activities have the effect of increasing those pressures in the short-term through more detailed, lengthier, and increased-cost perspectives. Engaging in, and with, SE activities creates more robust analysis, with improved long- term outcomes.

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