IT – up and flying

Technology has a big role to play in aerospace, QuEST tells eWorld.

Paromita Pain

What are the niches where IT graduates can contribute?
There are various areas in which IT engineers can participate. They include PLM (product lifecycle management), application development and customisation, Engineering Design Processes Automation, applications used for monitoring processes and process data, CAD (computer aided design), embedded systems for automotive, aerospace, industrial appliances and consumer electronics and performance testing.

What are the special skills IT engineers need to be armed with?
It is not essential that all automation projects need to be carried out by engineers /people with specialised skills. Projects can be a combined effort of engineering and software programming teams whose skills complement each other. For PDM, generally not much of engineering background is required if you join at beginner's level, but knowledge of product data management will be an added benefit. For Embedded systems, we need domain knowledge to a certain extent — basic understanding of the underlying engineering principles, terminologies and processes. For process automation, again, not much domain knowledge is required, most of these jobs are done by pure software engineers. For specific design applications domain expertise will be required, for example knowledge of manufacturing processes, awareness of technical standards.

What is the scope for global product development in the Indian aerospace sector today?

Global Product Development is a systematic and strategic process by which product companies critically examine how they need to use global resources to build and deliver products to their customers, that will enable them to take their products to markets — faster, better and cheaper. In the process, they will build competitive advantage for themselves.

Activities in product development that can be offshored or outsourced or globalised range from concept to definition to high-level design to detailed design to testing to production and support stages.

Activities in these stages include Industrial design, reverse engineering, system engineering, conceptual CAD work, mechanical design (layout and component), electrical design, embedded software, drafting and documentation, derivative products, component testing, test equipment design, prototyping, etc.

QuEST has been supporting global leaders such as Rolls Royce, General Electric, Pratt and Whitney, Smiths Aerospace, Magellan and Toshiba, among others, in their processes — across several product domains, including aerospace, energy, industrial and transportation.

Aerospace original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and their suppliers (tier 1 and 2) would be looking to implement the GPD model to drive down costs.

The market potential that India offers — combined with the offset clause — will have them looking towards leveraging India's capabilities.

Page 1, Page 2