Accenture data shows 80% of aerospace and defense executives agree that data governance requires a balance between control and transparency.
The back-to-back marathons that took place in Paris as spring turned to summer this year—the French Open tennis tournament at the Stade Roland Garros and the Paris Air Show at Le Bourget Airport—also marked a good time to take measure of how the post-pandemic recovery race is shaping up in aerospace, particularly for the aftermarket segment.
Putting the bottom line up front, industry leaders are leaning positive about the aftermarket. In Accenture Research’s recent survey of industry executives’ outlook on aftermarket spending, 52% expect it to be stable over the next six months, and 64% anticipate higher MRO spending for the next 24 months. Despite this sunny outlook, there are still hurdles to overcome. It is a familiar list: supply chain, talent and structural efficiency.
Many commercial aftermarket providers are targeting these challenges with investments in data insights and automation to improve “digital precision.” These investments have in turn increased the industry’s focus on data, collaboration and transparency and traceability of aftermarket activities throughout the aircraft life cycle.
Our data indicates that aerospace and defense executives are reinforcing the importance of three themes underlying digital precision: the generalization of artificial intelligence (AI), data transparency and digital identity. Aftermarket providers’ success in building on these themes is a helpful guide to understanding their progress toward achieving digital precision.
Nearly 95% of aerospace and defense executives surveyed in Accenture’s Commercial Aerospace Insight Report agreed that advancements in generative AI are opening the door to a new era of enterprise intelligence. The data-rich, document-heavy and highly profitable aftermarket is an interesting opportunity for emergent foundation models. From employing generative design to insert lighter parts into upgrades to using large language models to accelerate insight into technical documents, aftermarket executives have a right to be excited. They also have a right to be wary. The power of generative AI rests in training it with and linking it to accurate, transparent and trusted data. Aftermarket providers that advance into generative AI without this data footing proceed at their own peril.
MRO providers and aircraft operators both hold longstanding, seemingly conflicting views of data, recognizing the value of sharing it across providers and operators yet demurring on the extent to which they are willing to share it themselves. The latest data shows a shift in that contradiction, with 80% of aerospace and defense industry executives in our report agreeing that it is more critical than ever for data governance to balance control and transparency. The extent to which this sentiment translates into increased digital precision partly depends on how the word “balance” is defined.
For example, predictive services rely on finding the right balance of accurate, timely and governed utilization data while giving partners the transparency to tap into them. Striking this balance is the difference between digital precision and a missed target.
Balancing also requires trust. For aftermarket providers, trust is increasingly about identity, knowing what an asset is and where it came from. To that end, 76% of aerospace and defense industry executives surveyed agree that digital identity is no longer just a “technical issue.” It is becoming a strategic business imperative. Managing a universe of aftermarket data identities, from certifications to configurations, is hard. Harder still is aligning the industry on the best solution to the problem.
With 70% of aerospace and defense industry executives favoring centralized solutions for digital identity and 59% favoring partnership approaches, ecosystem-level identity appears far off. Yet the “precision” within “digital precision” does not happen without trusted digital identity. Are you using predictive algorithm services? You had better be certain you are working on the right asset. Are you drawing on product-quality use cases for generative AI? You had better really trust your data quality.
At this midpoint in 2023, the aftermarket is well along the road to growth. Sustaining that growth requires reconsidering how to increase the velocity of aftermarket delivery at the same—or lower—cost. Constraints in talent and supply chains only increase the friction within aftermarket systems. Providers’ investments in digital precision can be a solution, but even the most advanced AI stumbles without transparent, trustworthy data beneath its feet. With executive sentiment increasingly aligned behind the value of data, aftermarket providers may well be on the home stretch toward achieving digital precision.
The views expressed are not necessarily those of Aviation Week.
