How and why digitalization of operations can benefit Aerospace and Defense sectors?

Digital transformation has become essential in all industrial sectors. In fact, this revolution in the industrial world enables companies to optimize their work process, operational performance, their customer relation as well as their products and services.

In recent years, aeronautical and defense industries have faced several challenges.

Challenges for aerospace products manufacturing

Aircraft manufacturing: meet process and quality control

The aeronautical industry is characterized by heavy and technical regulations. The major challenge of quality service of aeronautical companies is to get complying products while improving performance at a reduced cost.

Therefore, opting for digitalization is an efficient solution in order to ensure quality within the industry.

The use of digital tools allows to:

  • Control the manufacturing process
  • Prevent defects and ensure responsiveness in record time for problem solving
  • Maintain the quality of the means of production

In addition, real-time data gathering and analysis helps to carry out two types of maintenance: predictive and corrective. This will significantly reduce the cost of repair in case of a breakdown or malfunction. In fact, predictive maintenance prevents future breakdowns. Corrective maintenance helps to determine how to replace pieces in the most efficient way.

Security requirements

Security is a major issue in the aeronautical sector. It is at the heart of the digital transformation problems. In fact, precision in information collected in real time is a real priority in this sector. Indeed, constantly innovating, digital tools increasingly ensure security in terms of digital data. As a result, industries must keep up the pace to avoid using outdated software.

Continuous improvement requires high quality data

Reducing non quality is also considered as a major challenge in the aeronautical sector. In this context, it is important to know that quality can be improved by assisting the operator with digital instructions. In this type of industry, the volume of documents to be managed is generally significant. We notice that in some machining or assembly sites, operators can spend more than 20% of their time filling out paper forms.  

Moreover, static paper forms are not responsive enough to capture critical production information in real time.

Easy to use, a digital solution like Picomto, reduces the time spent on processing and reading documents. It also provides relevant and up-to-date production data at each stage of the program development process. In addition, it accelerates the training of operators on a machine and reference.

Digitalization of production modes will reverse the trend

The objective of digitalization in the field of aeronautics is to simplify processes.In fact, whether in the civil or military field, the industrial aeronautical sector has always been distinguished by sudden variations.

Digitalization of production tools helps to adapt quickly and easily to this high variability. Thanks to the Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data, it is now possible to implement fully automated production units.

In addition, the use of digital tools helps to streamline collaboration throughout the supply chain. It should be noted that transparency and real-time data analysis play an important role in reducing costs significantly.

Error proof operating modes

Although aircraft production requires advanced technologies, production line operators do not always have the advanced tools that help to build them.

Therefore, in order to facilitate their daily working practices, implementing a digitalization project of production processes allows to switch from paper to digital aids.

It all started with the digitization of PDF files. This step was efficient but insufficient. Operators were unable follow instructions in a linear manner. In this context, digitalization of operating modes is essential.

Thanks to digital tools, work instructions become more adapted to field reality. They provide the right information at the right time. Besides easy access to information, digital operating modes help to eliminate errors and enforce quality online.

As a result, we can say that the digital tools used guarantee the increase of production output with fewer errors.

Seamless compliance

The aeronautics and defense industry has some of the strictest rules and regulations. Placing digital tools at the disposal of operators helps to check the compliance and non-compliance of elements.

Getting real-time visibility of quality information

The implementation of digital strategy allows any company to ensure efficiency. In fact, connecting procedures, software and operators helps to ensure visibility.

This connection is based on three main elements:

  • A global vision of operations by managers
  • Real-time collection of procedures
  • Collaboration between teams

In addition, business managers, engineers and operators can deploy dashboards to monitor the manufactured products, the encountered defects or the main key performance indicators in real-time.

Standardization on all your sites

Aircraft manufacturing is a globalized field with companies operating in several countries. Picomto helps companies to create work instructions based on pictures that can be easily translated to more than 20 languages. These guides make sure that operators follow the same methodology for assembly and inspection.

Case study

Thanks to Picomto, Daher was able to receive several benefits: operational excellence, eliminations of risks related to non-compliance, training and easier information transfer, continuous improvement, zero paper.