A galaxy of stars

Grouped like clusters of stars around the UK's regional aerospace hotspots, innovative primes and tier suppliers - comprising large organisations and SMEs - rely on the vital role of the aerospace cluster. These organisations help provides the glue that unites its members for a common purpose: to maintain the success and prosperity for everyone involved in the UK's aerospace industry.

According to the North West Aerospace Alliance's (NWAA) CEO, Martin Wright, clusters such as aerospace thrive because of the collective skills and capability grown and shared within the cluster. He says that businesses, particularly knowledge-based industries grow around centres of skill and knowledge.

“Clusters are key to regional capability through skills and technology development and once established become key drivers in the regional economy,” he begins. “The ability to collectively lobby is, to a large extent a superficial issue since we expect Governments to understand and promote the need for high skill levels, high value adding employment and the economic benefits of selling high technology products in a global market. When manufacturing becomes less appreciated, as has happened in the past, there is the ability in a cluster to act as a pressure group. The essence is that clusters offer collective broad capability, the potential for collaboration and knowledge creation.”

Advantage West Midlands' aerospace cluster manager, Pauline Pinney points to the West Midlands' strong manufacturing legacy: “It's important to promote an aerospace cluster because the Midlands has unique competences and a solid R&D base too,” she explains. “We help facilitate knowledge sharing, the dissemination of best practice and look at ways of enabling companies throughout the supply chain to find routes to new markets, such as the SC21 and aerospace technology exploitation programmes.”

The Isle of Man Aerospace Cluster (IOMAC) development manager for manufacturing, Adrian Moore, says the Isle of Man aerospace industry has 16 companies who have a direct customer order book related to aerospace design, manufacture or service provision and between them employ over 1,000 highly skilled personnel.

“The island is relatively small in relation to its closest neighbours but this has some significant advantages,” he explains. “The ability to work with other companies on the island and form strategic alliances is easier, as we have a good understanding of each other's capability and strategic aims and the usual perceptions of competition for work or skills is quickly dispelled.”

The survival and future prosperity of the UK's aerospace industry relies on its companies securing major OEM aircraft programme contracts. What programmes are the clusters currently engaged in and what levels of success and progress are they experiencing?

“The North West supply chain is heavily engaged in the BAE Systems' military programmes, particularly Typhoon, F-35 Lightning and Nimrod,” states Wright. “The region has been particularly successful in winning machining contracts on JSF, with the NWAA Supply Chain Excellence Programme (ASCE 1) being cited as a key success factor.”

Moore say IOMAC is working with all the major OEM primes either directly as a tier one or indirectly as part of the wider supply chain: “We've been involved with Airbus, Rolls-Royce and Boeing over the last few years in bringing the A380, 787 and A400M to market. Our order books look strong and with our programme of continued investment, training and continuous improvement, we are projecting to double our turnover in the next five years.”

Barry Warburton, the West of England Aerospace Forum (WEAF) chief executive, says that the organisation supports an internationally significant aerospace cluster, including major multinational players, as well as a supply chain estimated to comprise 800 smaller companies in the region.

“The sector supports an estimated 43,000 jobs in the region and South West companies are involved in key international projects such as the Airbus A380, A350 and A400M, Eurofighter and, through Rolls-Royce, the engines that power them,” he confirms. “More recently, the South West has been awarded the contract to build the National Composite Centre, which will add real value in the development of composite material for both aerospace and defence usage.”

Faced with increasing demands for new technological and environmental innovations, more training, more risk-sharing partnerships and more overseas competition, how can the UK's clusters help the supply chain respond to the challenges taking place in the industry?

Wright says that the NWAA began addressing the needs of the cluster in late 2004 when it began its workshop programme to understand the issues within the whole supply chain. From this emerged the Aerospace Supply Chain Excellence programmes ASCE 1 and now 2, which are designed to address future cluster shape and priorities in an increasingly global and complex market.

“Up until the late 1990s the supply chain was comparatively stable, but with the introduction of carbon composites and the need to respond to the demands of fuel-efficient travel, technology has been a disruptive factor in the supply chain increasing the need for companies to adapt and become more knowledge focused,” he states. “The ASCE phase 2 programme is designed to create a knowledge based cluster, addressing collaboration and efficiency in the way the cluster operates. It recognises the need to evolve through technology and co-ordination of effort from all the stakeholders.”

Warburton says WEAF recognises the need for the development of the sector to meet the global threat especially for the low cost economies: “Therefore, WEAF has developed a series of services and activities designed to support the sector. WEAF has had to change since it lost core financial support from the RDA by becoming self-sustaining. This in turn has led it to focus on real added value activities in support of the sector. A sector which seems to be coming out of recession and which it's hoped will continue to supply the OEMs of the regional with high quality products and services at the right price and on time.”

Moore feels that while the industry can be difficult to predict at times, he's certain that we need more young people to consider engineering as a career: “This is why we launched the ACE project two years ago to get into schools and colleges and work with the students to help them understand the wealth of career prospects there are. We're delighted to see it's working and we're filling our apprenticeship schemes.”

Finally, is UK aerospace industry still deserving of its position as a birthing ground of technological innovation? “Without a doubt,” Pinney concludes. “I'm constantly amazed by the innovations and ideas the many companies I've visited provide. I believe that UK aerospace's number one position in Europe and number two in the world is well deserved and we must do everything we can and with every resource we have available to build on this position and bring wealth into the region.”

www.aerospace.co.uk

www.aerospace.co.uk/iomac

www.midlandsaerospace.org.uk

www.weaf.co.uk