Across the A&D sector as a whole, cash conservation and margin protection are driving short-term cost cutting and a renewed focus on enterprise-wide efficiency.

Organisations who can react quickly can achieve significant improvements in earnings, market share and competitive position. The key is technology-enabled change, delivered efficiently and with respect for the culture and history of the industry.

Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) activities have become mission-critical to UK defence equipment suppliers. Instead of buying a support contract and running their own maintenance teams, customers want a comprehensive MRO service, paid for on the basis of usage. The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) is in the forefront of this global development, clawing back money and staff from support activities right across the defence budget. This market trend presents many defence suppliers with a stark choice: either acquire new business capabilities, or else cede market position to incoming MRO and service organisations.

In civil aerospace, the downturn means that despite the long-term growth trend of passenger numbers, airlines are now faced with excess capacity just when they are having to deal with unstable financing and fuel prices. There are knock-on implications for manufacturers and other suppliers, who need to juggle these problems alongside the traditional efficiency drivers of capital-intensive industries. The civil aerospace market is also responding to economic challenges by creating shareholder value in MRO and aftermarket activities.

The A&D industry needs to evolve rapidly in response to pressures like these. For the agile, there is an opportunity to grow, but those who are too slow to change face potentially irreversible decline.

This page contains:

• Capgemini’s approach
• Capgemini’s capabilities

Capgemini’s approach

To guide you and support you in the transformation journey, Capgemini has developed specific A&D business consulting services, combining industry expertise and transformation management methodology. We can help you identify and execute transformation strategies that can lead to lasting improvements in growth and competitiveness.

To address information systems challenges, Capgemini provides technology services and solutions for application development and systems integration based on our knowledge and experience in:

• Information management
• Architecture and solution design
• Integration of heterogeneous and complex systems
• Accelerated application development platform
• Critical information systems management

We also offer specific A&D industry solutions. For example, Capgemini has developed global expertise in Maintenance Repair and Overhaul solutions. We have MRO Centres of Excellence in Europe and India and have achieved significant project deliveries for leading European A&D manufacturers. Our MRO solutions can help you transform from a product-centric to a service-centric organisation. We offer experience in Business Process Improvements, Spare Parts Forecasting, Inventory Management, and SAP MRO implementation, upgrade and harmonisation. We have strategic partnerships with leading solution vendors for monitoring, diagnosing and predicting the health and remaining useful life of critical aerospace subsystems.

To stay competitive, A&D manufacturers need to integrate with the variety of design and authoring tools used by their business partners and suppliers. Design and production teams now work together seamlessly across geographical and organisational boundaries through approaches such as concurrent engineering. As a leading Innovation & Lifecycle Management solution integrator, Capgemini can help you design, implement and optimise your Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solution, and connect it to the extended enterprise ecosystem.

Capgemini has established an A&D Centre of Excellence in India supplying engineering services to global aircraft manufacturers. The Centre includes more than 300 aerospace engineers with varied skill sets from the aerospace domain, and an average of seven years’ experience. In addition, our Aviation Centre of Excellence provides a wide range of consulting services and information systems integration for airline, air freight and alliances across the globe.

Capgemini’s capabilities

As they tackle their current challenges, A&D companies need a technology partner who can offer proven business and technology solutions. With 30 years’A&D experience, Capgemini provides a broad set of solutions covering the sector, and has more than 4,000 A&D specialists worldwide. Our global practice works with seven of the world’s top 10 A&D companies, and all of the top 20 European-based companies.