Aerospace

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.

Content Management System (CMS)

Vanguard CMS is a Web-based expert system development tool for non-programmers. CMS Web-based applications guide customers or employees through complex decision-making processes using interactive, intelligent question and answer sessions. They are core software applications that can improve the operational efficiency of your key business processes.

Aerospace development and business activities can be streamlined using expert systems that automate routine decisions. Subject experts can automate their expertise in CMS applications, and aerospace engineers and business workers can interact with CMS applications that contain the development and business expertise they need. The rules-based design of the CMS applications enforces consistency in decisions across the company.