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BAE SYSTEMS

B AE Systems (BAE) is the United Kingdom’s largest manufacturing company and one
of the largest commercial aerospace and defence organisations in Europe. Its high-
technology, information-driven products and services range from one of the world’s
most capable multi-role combat fighters, the Eurofighter Typhoon, to the Jetstream
family of commercial aircraft, to the provision of information technology and information
systems for e-business to develop and implement logistics, IT and e-capability services. With
sales, manufacturing and support sites throughout the world, including the U.K., Europe, the
United States, and Australia, BAE employs 88,000 people and generates more than U.S. $ 30
billion in annual revenue.
Although BAE has consolidated its competitive position in established markets, and contin-
ues to expand into new markets in the Middle East and Asia, its performance in the aircraft
part of the business was being impeded by legacy information systems which support the
computer-aided design (CAD) and computer-aided manufacturing (CAM) of its aircraft. The
distributed nature of BAE’s design and manufacturing sites meant that storing and analysing
accurate sets of operational data describing the complex components of the various aircraft
types to produce aircraft assembly reports for the production lines became increasingly chal-
lenging and resource-consuming. Data describing the same aircraft component parts might
need resolution, such as in the case of various part naming conventions and codes.
Accessing the data from the many systems was a complex task involving many technical
challenges. As the aircraft business of BAE grew so did the likelihood for delays in producing
the aircraft assembly reports and other operations data sets necessary for aircraft production
management decision making. In the worst case, the production of aircraft on the assembly
line would stop until accurate information was available, with consequent schedule and cost
implications. BAE’s CAD/CAM staff were storing and analysing data sets sourced from 5 major
aircraft design and manufacturing sites spread throughout the U.K., each host to thousands
of staff involved in the design and manufacturing process, so that assembly reports and other
operations data could be produced. Although the data that the legacy systems processed were
held principally in computer files, there were numerous occasions when paper drawings with
annotations containing com-
ponent design and manufac-
turing information were used
to reconcile ambiguities and
inconsistencies in the assem-
bly reports. When these data
ambiguities and inconsisten-
cies occurred, this gave rise to
a sense of uncertainty in the
assembly reports produced.
What BAE needed was a sin-
gle repository for CAD/CAM
data that would also facilitate
the integration of data held in
its legacy systems. The com-
pany decided to replace its
legacy systems with an enter-
prise-wide knowledge man-
agement system which would
bring the design and manu- © Kristoffer Tripplaar/Alamy
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