Objects of innovation in aerospace and defense
The aerospace and defense industry has a proud history of creating innovations. For its first
75 years or so, these innovations were dominated by the quest of “higher, faster, farther”,
product innovations aimed at improving performance. Over the course of this run, the industry
introduced numerous new-to-the-world innovations, such as commercial air transport,
supersonic flight, and space flight, and then relentlessly perfected them. Many of these
innovations were embodied in large systems, such as aircraft, that perform a complex
function, like communications, air traffic control, or satellite navigation. These innovations
were the result of collective development efforts that combined numerous technologies from
multiple disciplines to create complex systems. Still today, portions of the aerospace and
defense industry are pursuing innovations for new, large-scale, complex systems. The Joint
Strike Fighter is a good example of a contemporary, large-scale, complex system. While
introducing some new-to-the-world technology such as its lift fan, JSF also will integrate a
host of functions and innovations into an avionics system that is reported to require 19 million
lines of source code. Innovation challenges of similar scale and complexity confront other
contemporary programs, such as the Airbus A380, Boeing’s 787, NASA’s Constellation
program, and the now defunct Future Combat System. It suffices to say that innovating within
the context of solving the challenges inherent in large complex programs is the hallmark of
this industry and remains an important customer need. Innovation in Aerospace & Defense
October 2009 Charles River Associates
However, that particular object of innovation—large, complex systems—is hardly
representative of all innovation the industry requires. Figure 1.4 conceptually depicts a wider
range of the objects of innovation in aerospace and defense, from simple, small innovations
that add only increments to a product’s performance to entire systems that are gargantuan on
all three dimensions of the array—complexity, scale/scope, and cost/schedule. For instance,
at the opposite end of the spectrum from large-complex systems are product improvements
that simply adapt or refine existing products/services or production/delivery systems. The
advance of turbine blade technologies, for example, represents such an incremental
improvement to a component technology. The realm of this array labeled integrated systems,
on the other hand, represents a diverse set of the complex systems that are commonplace in
aerospace and defense. These systems combine many elements together into subsystems
and vehicle platforms to perform relatively sophisticated multi-function missions. A list of good
examples of innovative integrated systems might include Northrop Grumman’s Global Hawk
unmanned aerial vehicle, the several variants of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP)
ground vehicles, and Space Exploration Technologies’ Falcon 1 launch vehicle. The system
solutions realm typically combines less complex elements together to perform a particular
mission or function but over a very large scale or scope. An example of such an innovative
pursuit of system solutions would be the Department of Homeland Security’s BioWatch
program, which seeks to develop more advanced capabilities to monitor major U.S.
population centers for airborne pathogens.
Scale / Scope
Complexity
Cost / Schedule
System of Systems Integrated System Element
Large-Complex
Systems
Integrated Systems
Product
Improvements
System Solutions
FCS
787
Turbine Blades
Falcon 1 JSF
MRAP
BioWatch
Global Hawk
Figure 1.4—Diversity of Innovation Types in Aerospace and Defense
The point of this second framework is simply to underscore the diversity among innovation
objects and organize their comparative significance in terms of the different kinds of Innovation in Aerospace & Defense
October 2009 Charles River Associates
Page 9
innovation that different customers value. Speeding up product development or imposing flybefore-buy mandates, for instance, may make sense for less complex or incremental
innovations, but may not be appropriate or even possible for some large-complex
innovations. Instead, there needs to be a more nuanced approach toward innovation that
reflects an understanding of how the dynamic interaction of complexity, scale/scope, and
cost/schedule frames the nature of the problem. A single, uniform approach to fostering
higher rates of innovation risks wasting money, or, perhaps worse, risks actually undermining
industry’s ability to achieve the innovations required to retain technological and economic
leadership.
Like Utterback’s model of innovation dynamics, this model of innovation helps put
observations of what’s actually happening in the market into an analytical context that
facilitates understanding. Consider, for example, the several provocative indications in U.S.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ statement accompanying the fiscal year 2010 budget. In
it, Secretary Gates emphasized a resolve not to “spend limited tax dollars to buy more
capability than the nation needs.” He then moved to terminate a number of programs “where
the requirements were truly in the ‘exquisite’ category and the technologies required were not
reasonably available to affordably meet . . . cost or schedule goals.”10 Seen through the
prism of the models of innovation dynamics and innovation objects, these statements can be
seen most generally as the kind of customer sentiment that is characteristic of an industry
that is proceeding through a relatively mature stage of its overall lifecycle. They signal a
significant change in the kinds of innovation Pentagon customers value, change that favors
tailored solutions at lower costs and less risks achieved by focusing pursuits in the realms of
incremental product improvements and integrated systems rather than large-complex
systems. Gates also signals that as regards integrated systems in particular, the objects of
innovation that customers value is shifting toward lower complexity “satisficing” solutions.
Companies that want successfully to pursue innovations responsive to Gates’s indications of
customer need might tend to focus on process innovations that enable the delivery of costeffective, rapidly responsive integrated system and system solutions, not clean-sheet designs
for all-encompassing large-complex integrated systems of systems.
http://www.crai.com/uploadedFiles/Publications/innovation-in-aerospace-and-defense.pdf
The aerospace and defense industry has a proud history of creating innovations. For its first
75 years or so, these innovations were dominated by the quest of “higher, faster, farther”,
product innovations aimed at improving performance. Over the course of this run, the industry
introduced numerous new-to-the-world innovations, such as commercial air transport,
supersonic flight, and space flight, and then relentlessly perfected them. Many of these
innovations were embodied in large systems, such as aircraft, that perform a complex
function, like communications, air traffic control, or satellite navigation. These innovations
were the result of collective development efforts that combined numerous technologies from
multiple disciplines to create complex systems. Still today, portions of the aerospace and
defense industry are pursuing innovations for new, large-scale, complex systems. The Joint
Strike Fighter is a good example of a contemporary, large-scale, complex system. While
introducing some new-to-the-world technology such as its lift fan, JSF also will integrate a
host of functions and innovations into an avionics system that is reported to require 19 million
lines of source code. Innovation challenges of similar scale and complexity confront other
contemporary programs, such as the Airbus A380, Boeing’s 787, NASA’s Constellation
program, and the now defunct Future Combat System. It suffices to say that innovating within
the context of solving the challenges inherent in large complex programs is the hallmark of
this industry and remains an important customer need. Innovation in Aerospace & Defense
October 2009 Charles River Associates
However, that particular object of innovation—large, complex systems—is hardly
representative of all innovation the industry requires. Figure 1.4 conceptually depicts a wider
range of the objects of innovation in aerospace and defense, from simple, small innovations
that add only increments to a product’s performance to entire systems that are gargantuan on
all three dimensions of the array—complexity, scale/scope, and cost/schedule. For instance,
at the opposite end of the spectrum from large-complex systems are product improvements
that simply adapt or refine existing products/services or production/delivery systems. The
advance of turbine blade technologies, for example, represents such an incremental
improvement to a component technology. The realm of this array labeled integrated systems,
on the other hand, represents a diverse set of the complex systems that are commonplace in
aerospace and defense. These systems combine many elements together into subsystems
and vehicle platforms to perform relatively sophisticated multi-function missions. A list of good
examples of innovative integrated systems might include Northrop Grumman’s Global Hawk
unmanned aerial vehicle, the several variants of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP)
ground vehicles, and Space Exploration Technologies’ Falcon 1 launch vehicle. The system
solutions realm typically combines less complex elements together to perform a particular
mission or function but over a very large scale or scope. An example of such an innovative
pursuit of system solutions would be the Department of Homeland Security’s BioWatch
program, which seeks to develop more advanced capabilities to monitor major U.S.
population centers for airborne pathogens.
Scale / Scope
Complexity
Cost / Schedule
System of Systems Integrated System Element
Large-Complex
Systems
Integrated Systems
Product
Improvements
System Solutions
FCS
787
Turbine Blades
Falcon 1 JSF
MRAP
BioWatch
Global Hawk
Figure 1.4—Diversity of Innovation Types in Aerospace and Defense
The point of this second framework is simply to underscore the diversity among innovation
objects and organize their comparative significance in terms of the different kinds of Innovation in Aerospace & Defense
October 2009 Charles River Associates
Page 9
innovation that different customers value. Speeding up product development or imposing flybefore-buy mandates, for instance, may make sense for less complex or incremental
innovations, but may not be appropriate or even possible for some large-complex
innovations. Instead, there needs to be a more nuanced approach toward innovation that
reflects an understanding of how the dynamic interaction of complexity, scale/scope, and
cost/schedule frames the nature of the problem. A single, uniform approach to fostering
higher rates of innovation risks wasting money, or, perhaps worse, risks actually undermining
industry’s ability to achieve the innovations required to retain technological and economic
leadership.
Like Utterback’s model of innovation dynamics, this model of innovation helps put
observations of what’s actually happening in the market into an analytical context that
facilitates understanding. Consider, for example, the several provocative indications in U.S.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ statement accompanying the fiscal year 2010 budget. In
it, Secretary Gates emphasized a resolve not to “spend limited tax dollars to buy more
capability than the nation needs.” He then moved to terminate a number of programs “where
the requirements were truly in the ‘exquisite’ category and the technologies required were not
reasonably available to affordably meet . . . cost or schedule goals.”10 Seen through the
prism of the models of innovation dynamics and innovation objects, these statements can be
seen most generally as the kind of customer sentiment that is characteristic of an industry
that is proceeding through a relatively mature stage of its overall lifecycle. They signal a
significant change in the kinds of innovation Pentagon customers value, change that favors
tailored solutions at lower costs and less risks achieved by focusing pursuits in the realms of
incremental product improvements and integrated systems rather than large-complex
systems. Gates also signals that as regards integrated systems in particular, the objects of
innovation that customers value is shifting toward lower complexity “satisficing” solutions.
Companies that want successfully to pursue innovations responsive to Gates’s indications of
customer need might tend to focus on process innovations that enable the delivery of costeffective, rapidly responsive integrated system and system solutions, not clean-sheet designs
for all-encompassing large-complex integrated systems of systems.
http://www.crai.com/uploadedFiles/Publications/innovation-in-aerospace-and-defense.pdf
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