Information building blocks

Although ERP and supply chain systems saturate the Western market, it's still underdeveloped in low cost economies. Mike Richardson discovers how AeroDNA is helping to provide more sub-tier supply chain visibility for COMAC's ARJ21 and C919 aircraft programmes.
AeroDNA provides enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply chain solutions specifically for the aerospace industry which have been developed over the past decade through collaboration with a number of UK, Polish and Chinese aerospace companies. The company has offices in the state-owned Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) facility of Shanghai, Liverpool and Poland, with another opening in Bangalore in September.

AeroDNA has partnered with COMAC in order to develop aircraft manufacturer's supply chain systems' infrastructure and to provide a standardised ERP solution for its expanding supply chain. To ensure that the systems can be continuously innovated at minimum cost, AeroDNA has established a cross-functional team in Wuhan, China to provide 24/7 technical support, maintenance and software development.

“COMAC was keen to investigate not only its own planning and control systems, but more importantly, those of its supply chain,” begins managing director, Tony Guo. “We ran gap analysis comparisons between Western ERP systems and what was actually being used in China, paying close attention to the large vertically-integrated Chinese businesses that were continually throwing low cost labour resources at inefficient processes.”

China consists of many large vertically-integrated government-owned businesses and it's only in the last few of years that it's seen Western companies setting up in the region as well as a slew of smaller companies entering the aerospace industry to become tiered suppliers.

However, according to Guo, COMAC still felt it didn't need to rely on communication of data and schedules to the supply chain: “COMAC seemed satisfied working with inefficient manual processes rather than streamlining the system and ensuring it can be automated because it could afford to throw more people into simply telephoning and faxing suppliers for information on sourcing and buying parts. Plus it never really had to provide levels of supply chain visibility - and even intercompany visibility - in the way that it has until now. The challenge we faced was in understanding the cultural differences, removing this perception and explaining the benefits of providing daily schedule requirements and information flow. There's a lot of education required; supply chain creation, development and visibility is a brand new concept for COMAC.”

The ins and outs of sourcing

Guo says that COMAC's ARJ21 regional jet aircraft programme supply chain strategy is completely different to that of its younger sibling, the C919 narrow body airliner, due for its first flight in 2014.

“The ARJ21 is built on partnerships with systems integrators like GE Aviation, Honeywell and Goodrich, whereas the C919's supply chain philosophy means that, rather than climbing up the supply chain to outsource production, it's actually descending the chain and eschewing system integrators in favour of moving more of its system integration and assembly work in-house,” he clarifies. “It's taking much of the intellectual property and knowledge gleaned from the ARJ21 and dropping down a tier, whereas most other aerospace OEMs are moving up the tiers to outsourcing more and more. The C919 is actually in-sourcing.”

AeroDNA will build ERP system solutions for COMAC's sub tiers, whilst helping COMAC better manage new product introductions for its new aircraft programmes and installing AeroDNA's supply chain management portal.

“COMAC doesn't fully understand the scale and impact of having so many components in a supply chain without having systems and visibility,” concludes Guo. “Our challenge is in helping to develop its awareness of what could go wrong if they don't have any systems and process control when developing a tiered supply chain, and also the mechanisms they need within its supply chain to ensure its suppliers provide the right feedback.”

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