Aerospace companies operate in a very competitive
business environment and face high levels of risk and uncertainty.
Products are highly complex, require long development cycles, and are
manufactured in low volumes. Relationships between product components
are strongly interdependent, as are those between the company and its
suppliers. And, with fixed-cost contracts and the emergence of new
"total care" contracts, there is little margin for error in planning
and execution.
Aerospace companies are therefore engaged in constant struggles
to
- Improve reliability and performance;
- Reduce development and manufacturing costs;
- Shorten development cycles; and
- Plan for and reduce risk.
Solutions
The Vanguard System™ is a comprehensive business solution
for improving the quality, reliability, and speed of management
decisions. It does this by helping you Collaborate
with colleagues on important plans, Analyze
alternatives using state-of-the-art modeling and
simulation techniques, Automate routine
decisions using expert system technology, and Improve
overall management effectiveness by adding structure to
a normally chaotic process.
Business improvement is all about working smarter. Vanguard brings
together the people, analytics, and systems required to help your
business operate intelligently.
Here are just a few of the ways Vanguard supports the aerospace
industry:
- Cost modeling: Accurately estimate lifecycle
costs of very complex systems, from design through
retirement.
- Demand forecasting: Predict demand for final
products and raw materials, even when historical data is
scarce.
- Risk mitigation: Fully understand risks before
engaging in projects. Implement risk mitigation strategies and
contingency plans.
- Sales and operations planning (S&OP):
Enable real-time collaboration between Marketing &
Sales and Operations to ensure production capacity can profitably
support customer demand (and vice versa).
- Information sharing: Involve suppliers and
customers in planning processes. Dynamically receive their latest
demand and material availability estimates.
- Supply chain planning: Optimize your supply
chain network, inventory levels, distribution plans, and
more.
- Operational efficiency: Conduct process
improvement/Six Sigma projects to reduce costs, cycle times, and
waste.
- Equipment diagnostics: Expertly guide
operators, technicians, and support agents through complex
troubleshooting processes using intuitive question-and-answer
sessions.
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Case Study
Design engineers at Rolls-Royce use Vanguard to more
accurately estimate the manufacturing costs of
next-generation aerospace products.
Case Study
Challenge
Rolls-Royce, an $18.9 billion global power systems
company, needed to reduce manufacturing costs for their
next-generation aircraft engines. They realized that 80% of
their manufacturing costs were determined in the design phase
of product development, yet cost was not one of the primary
design factors.
Solution
Rolls-Royce uses Vanguard to provide real-time cost
estimates to engineers as they design aircraft engines,
allowing the engineers to estimate the cost impact of design
changes and to optimize engines for cost efficiency. The
Vanguard solution relies on key software features including
among others: collaborative modeling, hierarchical model
representations, reusable model libraries, and risk analysis
methods.
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