Aarti Singh, Director IT & DA Center & CIO at Boeing India, in interaction with CIOTechOutlook, shares her thoughts on how the adoption of new technologies is enabling Aircraft manufacturers in enhancing their operational efficiency.

Aircraft manufacturers are looking to cut costs and development times while increasing operational reliability and revenue across the supply chain. How is IT proving to be an enabler for the same? 

IT is going to play a significant role in transforming the business in the future. So, reducing costs, reducing the product lifecycle as a whole, and making the supply chain efficient, are all on the cards for us as well. We are also looking at digitally transforming all the areas mentioned above and are already on that path, and very excited to make a difference for the business.

How is Boeing India adopting new technologies to enhance its operational efficiency?

Boeing India is a part of the global Boeing Enterprise and all the transformations that we are adopting will help Boeing India as well. So, we are working on innovative ideas locally in India, within Boeing, and also in collaboration with some of our research partners, and, then we take it back to the global organization. There are two ways we follow: one is where we are doing a lot of transformation globally, and India is part of that story and we use the solutions coming down to us. And secondly, we also have a very large team here who works on solutions.

Harnessing the unexploited value from data silos to create a holistic view of the enterprise is one of the major tasks on the to-do list of aviation industry CIOs. How do you propose to execute it successfully?

Data is the new oil and the full value will come when we bring a holistic view of the enterprise together. Therefore, in Boeing, as well, we have several initiatives going on, in partnership with our business, our engineering teams, and our supply chain teams to bring all this together. We are also looking at a product-centric approach and building the relationship between the various IT products as well. We have also seen some early success in some areas partially and are working towards this broader goal. And, it is a very big endeavour for us, and we are working it holistically with all the various groups together.

Predictive Analysis is being used to boost the uptime of equipment. How do you see the increasing importance of predictive analytics in the aviation industry? How can it be combined with real-time data for predictive maintenance?     

Predictive analytics is extremely important, not just in aviation, but in every industry like healthcare, banking, and so on. In aviation, it is essential to have predictive analytics in the area of maintenance and to be able to do that it is very important to bring all the data together. Therefore, right from all the sensor data, from the various platforms to ecosystem data, to all the existing patterns that we have helps build models, which, in turn, help in predicting the optimal maintenance that is required for our various platforms.

As a CIO of an aircraft manufacturer, what do you think are the major challenges in digitalizing the manufacturing process, and how can they be addressed?

If you look at all the legacy systems that exist, it is a huge challenge. Furthermore, bringing in the new with the legacy is another challenge, because these systems are very complex and very big and, it's still being used. But we are working towards it very aggressively in making all this digital and bringing in all the new technologies. And, a big endeavour is also where we are looking at how do we migrate all this to the new systems and then start becoming more digital in the entire lifecycle. Therefore, right from sales, and marketing, to design, development, and maintenance, we are looking to digitize the whole ecosystem of the business as such.

An inadequate supply chain management strategy can lead to delays and downtime. How can aerospace manufacturers streamline their supply chain?   

There is a real benefit if we can optimize and make the supply chain very efficient. Similarly, for Boeing, as a company, it's very important that we bring in efficiencies in the supply chain, and we are looking at digital in a very big way to help bring in that efficiency. So right from making all our processes simple we do want to make our processes simple. We do want to have common processes, reusable processes across the board, and then to bring in that element of digital on top. And, how do we ensure that our production doesn't suffer from supply chain issues? Therefore, we are talking about a lot of analytics in the supply chain area and we are also looking at embedding analytics in the whole supply chain process as such.

Cybercriminals recognize that firms within the sector are asset-rich, with high-value data and digital assets. This makes them attractive targets for hackers. How can aerospace manufacturers ensure cyber security?

Cyber security is extremely important in the aerospace industry. We support a lot of classified information. It is very classified and there is a lot of focus on cybersecurity. So, if you look at the amount of investment we make, the amount of time we spend in ensuring our systems are secure, extra precaution is taken on how you give access. So, the process of how you disseminate information also is a very thought-through process with a lot of teams involved. And this is how we are ensuring that we take care of our systems, and we use a lot of sophisticated systems as well, to protect our systems in turn.

How do you see the future of aerospace manufacturing with regard to the adoption of new technologies in the future?

Aerospace manufacturing across the board is very aggressively adopting new technologies to bring in operational efficiency and will continue to use digital and increase digital in all their processes. So, the digital footprint and all the areas of manufacturing are going to increase and we are looking at how digital will reduce the product lifecycle, as a whole, and how will it reduce time to market. Therefore, a lot of emphasis and focus is on that right now. How do we help the engineering teams, where we bring in more digital to them, how do we help our sales and marketing teams to bring digital, and how do we help the supply chain? Thus, we are looking at digital across the board and we have also undertaken a very big transformation initiative across these big groups.