The UK government wanted to develop an understanding of the e-business issues facing the UK aerospace manufacturing industry. Identifying the opportunities and challenges would inform the development of a plan to protect and enhance the sector's international competitiveness.
PA worked with the Society of British Aerospace Companies (SBAC) and the UK Council for Electronic Business (UKCEB) to develop a value chain analysis of the UK aerospace industry, identifying the key marketplaces and transactions and the potential to e-enable each.
Through a process of over 60 interviews and questionnaires using a unique electronic business assessment tool methodology (E-BAT - also developed by PA for the UK Government), PA established that - despite significant publicity - there had been minimal e-business impact on the UK aerospace industry. While US customers were mandating e-business and UK prime contractors and level-2 systems integrators were promoting it, their suppliers were at best skeptical - if not actively resisting e-business.
These findings were publicly presented at the 2000 Farnborough Airshow. Subsequently the drivers and barriers to e-business adoption were established at an experts' workshop attended by senior e-business representatives from the UK Ministry of Defence and leading UK aerospace companies.
A challenging e-business scenario in the UK aerospace industry was clearly identified to the UK government for the first time. This insight supported the plan to encourage and enable the level of e-business adoption required to maintain international competitiveness within the UK. A framework model of e-business opportunities was developed to enable individual aerospace companies to visualize the opportunities according to value chain and lifecycle positioning.
As a result of the insights provided by this study, the UK Government, in conjunction with SBAC and UKCeB, has launched the PeBLS (Practical e-Business Leadership Scheme) initiative by which UK aerospace primes and level-2 systems integrators can work with their suppliers to identify and implement key areas of e-business collaboration.
The final report has been developed into an interactive credit card sized CD ROM by PA's New Media Design group and distributed to over 2000 industry contacts. It is available in both this format and Adobe Acrobat PDF.
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