The Five C's Of A & D Success

By Epicor Software Corporation

Manufacturing in the aerospace and defense sector involves the same disciplines and requirements as every other manufacturing segment - plus. Plus the fact that it is nearly always high tech and strongly engineering oriented, with rapid change as a given. Plus increased scrutiny and rigid documentation and reporting requirements. Plus additional testing and certification that is often required. Plus a keen focus on costs and efficiency written right into the procurement contracts. Plus a lot more.

A&D manufacturers need all the help they can get, and appropriate use of information technology can go a long way to help in meeting these challenges. But A&D manufacturers have always struggled with off-the-shelf software that does not support the requirements of the A&D environment. Add-ons for program/project management, work breakdown structure and progress reporting are often cumbersome to work with, incomplete, and not well integrated with the operational applications. Software designed for volume production often falls short in the area of engineering controls and configuration management. Engineering-oriented software might not support the production scheduling and control requirements very well. And the list goes on.