Digital threadA path to adopt innovative and transformative capabilities

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Executive summaryKnowing how to take advantage of new technology and dealing with constant change are key requirements for success in the aerospace and defense (A&D) industry. Corporate behaviors are quickly adapting to a changing global political environment, and regulatory requirements and new entrants are causing massive disruptions in the marketplace. To stay competitive, A&D companies need to have flexible capabilities enabled by streamlined business processes and adaptive technologies.

Technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, 3D printing and the internet of things (IoT) are revolutionizing the way A&D products are designed, manufactured and maintained. The reliance on advanced technologies means companies need a strong partner ecosystem they can collaborate with to improve design and manufacturing processes, materials, components and products.

As vertical integration and collaborative work environments are deployed to improve product delivery in A&D manufacturing, the trend is to move toward a value chain model that facilitates delivery of the right materials at the right time to sustain design, demand and post-product support requirements.

This paper details the components of the ideal A&D value chain and provides insights on what companies need to do to remain competitive in the ever-changing business landscape.

DXC’s A&D value chain vision

At DXC Technology, our vision for success in the A&D industry is built on the foundation of a value chain consisting of three core components: design, build and maintain (see Figure 1, DXC’s A&D value chain vision). Enabling the value chain are capabilities such as using a connected factory approach, grasping the concept of a glass supply chain and maintaining products through means such as digital customer services and predictive maintenance.

Tying the three core components of the value chain together is a digital thread that allows a connected data flow and an integrated view of assets in production as they cross traditionally compartmentalized stages that have their own data sources. The digital thread provides the capability of accessing, integrating and transforming disparate data into actionable information, mainly about performance and cost. It also feeds the continuous improvement cycle iteratively between product, support and operations. This results in product and service improvements, lower total cost of operation and new enhancements to products and services.

Let’s dig deeper into each item in the value chain and examine the supporting capabilities.

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Design: Triggering the feedback loop

From a design standpoint, what becomes critical to A&D companies is how to accelerate time to first revenue and how to enable collaboration internally between engineers and designers, and external suppliers.

A major factor in getting designs to market faster is close collaboration using capabilities like visualization tools that facilitate work among team members. Collaboration is essential because it lets teams do many “what ifs,” iterations that ensure that the final design has been fully vetted before it hits production.

Another key factor is ensuring that the enterprise gets a feedback loop from the maintain side. An effective feedback loop not only puts the company into a continuous improvement mode with existing products, but it also improves the overall quality of new products coming into the marketplace.

Model-based engineering and 3D simulation. Model-based engineering allows for the creation of theoretical and arithmetic designs, and the ability to optimize them.

This approach lets enterprises analyze and merge datasets to optimize model- based engineering.

Figure 1. DXC’s A&D value chain vision

DESIGN

Dig

ital f

ound

atio

n

Secu

rity

Secu

rity

Out

com

e

Business Models

Digital thread

Digital thread

Levers

Orchestrated Business

Master Data Management

Workforce Optimization

• Generative design• Visualization and

simulation (AR/VR)• 3D printing

prototype

• Engineering virtual desktop infrastructure

• High-performance computing• Sourcing/procurement• Designed quality

Design and engineering

Coordinated design to build process

Reduced time to produce

Predictive demand sensing

Reduced time to deliver Supply chain visibility Predictive

maintenance

Value-add products/services driven through desired business outcomes

Prototype and test

BUILD

• Supplier integration

• Training and virtual onboarding

• Vertical integration

• Analytics

• ML & AI• Digital maintenance• 3D printing spares• Augmented reality• Drone inspection

• Marketing/sales/BD• Real-time product data• CRM

• Master scheduling

• Predictive production planning

• MES SAP integration

• Shop floor integration

• Industry 4.0

• Vertical integration

• Block chain• Asset/parts

tracking• IIoT

Quality Manufacturing Supply chain

MAINTAIN

Maintain Support

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For example, both pre-existing metals used on combat ships and new, lighter replacement metals can be analyzed. Model-based engineering doesn’t just replicate existing products. New products are being created and tested, and doing this by computer saves significant costs.

Virtualization. Companies can optimize software and technology assets, and share them across different divisions through virtualization. Doing this ensures that workers in areas such as engineering, manufacturing and maintenance are all using common tools that are up to date and secure.

Build: Quality first

On the manufacturing side, one of the biggest challenges is ramp-up. The key in going from design to production is minimizing prototype-to-production floor time and maximizing production floor time, with a focus on quality first. This will ensure that throughput targets are met.

Quality first includes minimizing scrap and rework, and producing products that are right the first time, as opposed to adding time in the manufacturing process to go back and fix things. By making the effort to do it right the first time, throughput will improve, scrap will decrease and profitability will go up.

Again, collaboration and communication are paramount. Elements learned in the manufacturing process need to have a loop back into the design phases and loop over into the maintain phases. What is learned from the manufacturing process will help maintain the product, build better components for existing products and build better designs as new products are brought to the marketplace.

Connected factory (Industry 4.0, i4.0). This concept enables the creation of a “smart” or “connected” factory. Industry 4.0 is commonly used to describe cyber physical systems that monitor physical processes, connect everything in the factory, exploit a virtual copy of the physical world and enable high levels of automation.

In the connected factory, cyber physical systems and collaborative robots (cobots) communicate and cooperate with one another and with humans in real time via the IoT. Both internal and external organizational services are offered and used by the various components of the value chain.

There are many opportunities for A&D companies to adopt features of i4.0. This includes high levels of automation, which help to enable “lights out” operations; the glass supply chain; and using analytics to effectively leverage real-time data. The challenge is to adopt a common approach in manufacturing across the organization, bearing in mind the business context and current production plans.

Supply chain. An essential factor for instilling quality in the build process is optimizing supply chain activities. Enterprises should tie such activities to demand planning and ensure that they operate in lockstep. As products are moving through the production line, different components are required at different stages of the manufacturing process, and it’s important to make sure those products meet quality parameters and are available on time. Failing to have a product on the production line when needed halts everything, and particularly in A&D manufacturing, one stoppage builds upon another.

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Having the digital capabilities to operate the supply chain is incredibly important. The goal is to have a glass supply chain that allows visibility to activity occurring across the entire supply chain at any point. This gives understanding to where products are, whether they will be available on time, or if something needs to be done differently, whether a component can quickly be placed to keep manufacturing going.

A glass supply chain provides a clear view of what’s happening, the ability to react quickly and assurance to produce high-quality products on time that meet customer requirements.

The supply chain can increase the degree of integration through digitized interactions with customers, suppliers and IT systems from continuous communication among components flowing through the supply chain network. Other characteristics of a glass supply chain include:

• Automated tracking. Supply chain information that was previously created by people can now be generated by sensors, radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, meters, actuators, GPS and other devices and systems. Instead of relying on labor-based tracking and monitoring, shipping containers, trucks, products and parts can report on themselves. Today’s technology can enable dashboards to be deployed to display the real-time status of plans, commitments, sources of supply and pipeline inventories.

• Cognitive analysis. Procurement staff, supply chain analysts and logisticians can be supported in evaluating trade-offs through intelligent systems assessing constraints and alternatives, allowing decision makers to simulate various courses of action. Deep learning tools can be capable of learning and making some decisions by themselves, for example in reconfiguring supply chain networks when disruptions occur.

Maintain: Becoming stickier with customers

The maintain component is essential. It provides a feedback loop for enhancing current and new products, reinforcing a continued quality approach for items being produced now and in the future. It provides new revenue sources by opening up new selling opportunities with customers. In addition to helping increase revenue, the maintain component provides companies a prime opportunity to become much stickier with customers — that is, to compel customers to “stick” with companies and continue to use products and services.

What becomes critical in the maintain component is the ability to deal with many different suppliers and collaborate well with them. This means collaboration tools will become important, along with fostering supplier relationships, since many of the suppliers may provide parts and some of the labor for the components being maintained.

A&D companies need to ensure that they have the necessary collaboration tools to work with different suppliers and their customers. For example, for a passenger plane receiving maintenance, the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) or airline needs to ensure that they keep as many planes in the air as possible and are able to anticipate failures via predictive capabilities. Much of the information gathered from operations can be used in analytics. Converging different data sets can assist customers in finding anomalies that may affect their operations.

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Based on these anomalies and the patterns that develop, a program can be designed that is predictive as opposed to preventive or reactionary. Once a company moves into predictive mode, it optimizes the time engines are running, planes are flying or ships are sailing the sea. This not only optimizes uptime but also optimizes profitability, revenue streams and loyalty.

Robotic process automation (RPA). A significant element of maintain is finding the best ways to deploy automation and robotics. RPA is a good example of an approach that can drive significant savings from undifferentiated back-office functions. RPA is a demonstrated, tactical business process improvement method. It is not an IT solution per se, because it focuses on what people do in the process and leaves the existing IT systems alone. For the right business processes, RPA can achieve many levels of improvement in terms of transaction throughput, accuracy and cost-efficiency. It can also increase stickiness with customers by saving them time and money through automating manual, labor-intensive tasks.

Digital customer services. Another key element of the maintain story is sustaining strong relationships with customers and communicating with them frequently. First, companies need to respond to their customers quickly with accurate information. With digital customer services, it’s important to look at how to automate as much as possible and where it’s possible to automate.

For example, manufacturing companies can increase their stickiness with customers by providing personalized customer experiences driven by connected products and IoT devices. As with the manufacturing process itself, when it comes to customer service, it’s all about speed and quality, with quality first. Getting poor quality information in a customer’s hands fast isn’t a win; getting high-quality information into a customer’s hands quickly is what to strive for.

Digital thread: Weaving it all together

In the manufacturing process, the “design, build and maintain” process will touch a variety of systems, and there will be various applications to enable those areas. The ability to move information rapidly back and forth across these applications is critical, and this is where the “digital thread” comes into play.

The digital thread is a seamless stream of information encompassing all three value chain components, going back and forth as opposed to three separate siloed components of information. Today, data isn’t shared. In most cases, it’s sitting in silos. The digital thread allows engineering, manufacturing and maintenance groups to operate more seamlessly and as one team, as opposed to separate entities within an organization.

Digital twin. A good example of how the digital thread weaves its way through the value chain is the use of virtualization to replicate and duplicate things, such as an operating system or server. Taken further, the digital twin concept extends the paradigm from design/engineer/manufacture through service and operations. Manufacturing now entails creating virtual products in virtual space, physical products in actual space, and using data and information to tie the two realms together. Digital twin fulfills that role.

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A digital twin allows for the early discovery of system performance deficiencies by simulating results before physical processes and products are completed. Models and simulations can optimize operations, manufacturing, inspections and sustainability, and they are applied during the entire life cycle. This enables continuous refinement of designs and models through data captured and analytics, which is easily cross-referenced to design details.

The life cycle between product and support is continually repeated to incorporate, for example, the new cockpit, systems and weapons. Aircraft engine manufacturers that implement digital twin technology ingest engine usage data for every flight — including the physics of the engine blades and how the engine is operating. This data is then used to predict exactly when to bring the aircraft in for inspection.

Security. Due to its importance and the fact that the digital thread encompasses all aspects of manufacturing, a paramount component is security. The crown jewel of any A&D company is its intellectual capital — that is, how products are built and what components are used. The last thing anyone wants is for the design of combat ships to fall into the hands of an adversary. Security is not only about maintaining intellectual capital — it’s also about national security.

Master data management. All aspects of A&D manufacturing include processing, analyzing and disseminating information, so managing data is also a crucial component. One of the biggest challenges for A&D companies is dealing with master data and having a single version of the truth. The more companies can move to a single version of a truth from design through maintain, the easier it is to design new products, build new products and maintain products that are in the marketplace.

Poor master data management has an impact on product quality and the ability to deliver products on time. The entire process is sluggish and slows down in situations where many versions of the truth exist. It forces enterprises into a reactive situation — trying to figure out which version of the truth they should be operating from.

Conclusions and recommendations

A&D manufacturing goes well beyond making and selling products and components. It’s now about using technologies such as virtualization to improve the collaborative design process. It’s about breaking down silos to integrate information. Finally, it’s about focusing on quality while delivering products and services quickly and cost-effectively.

By adopting a value chain that supports design, build and maintain, companies can streamline the manufacturing process, improve product availability and become more profitable.

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Key recommendations for deploying the A&D value chain include:

• Placing quality first, with speed a close second

• Improving collaboration inside and outside of the organization, including breaking down departmental silos to share information more effectively

• Increasing product revenues by having the right materials on hand to satisfy demand

• Reducing material costs by streamlining vendor management procedures and negotiating larger discounts, sharing the savings with vendors

• Embracing advanced technology in a measured, strategic manner to improve quality and efficiency in all aspects of the manufacturing process.

In the A&D industry, driving out cost, improving yield, accelerating time to market and meeting growing customer demands are essential. An effective value chain approach combined with the adoption of innovative and transformative ideas can greatly assist in addressing these challenges. While the business landscape is as competitive as ever, companies that develop the right strategy and integrate technology effectively have endless opportunities to improve productivity, increase speed to market, and drive new revenue.

DXC helps A&D companies transform their value chains by providing a wide portfolio of services, ranging from using advanced analytics to reduce downtime in maintenance, to streamlining design systems with the DXC Engineering Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (eVDI). Our extensive industry experience and technical expertise help A&D companies gain significant benefits via technology and processes such as high-performance computing (HPC), product life-cycle management (PLM) and the industrial internet of things (IIoT).

Through our history and knowledge of manufacturing processes, and proven record of successfully deploying technology such as predictive analytics, we deliver fully scalable systems that are integrated across all the functions of the A&D value chain.

About the author

Chris Lennon is DXC Technology’s chief technologist, Aerospace and Defense, Americas. He is responsible for providing strategic guidance and customer oversight for existing and emerging technologies and their use in A&D to improve business performance and outcomes.

Learn more at www.dxc.technology/aerospace_defense

About DXC Technology

DXC Technology (DXC: NYSE) is the world’s leading independent, end-to-end IT services company, serving nearly 6,000 private and public-sector clients from a diverse array of industries across 70 countries. The company’s technology independence, global talent and extensive partner network deliver transformative digital offerings and solutions that help clients harness the power of innovation to thrive on change. DXC Technology is recognized among the best corporate citizens globally. For more information, visit www.dxc.technology.

© 2018 DXC Technology Company. All rights reserved. MD_8647a-18. August 2018www.dxc.technology

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