INGENIEUR
Figure 2: Engineering Services can potentially support all the segments of the Aircraft Lifecycle.
work at their own premises) or on-site work
support (at the customer’s premises) for the
engineering activities.
The aerospace ESO market requirements are
governed by the wide range of technical activities
being sourced from external providers (see Figure
3). What is significant is that unlike other industrial
sectors, the outsourcing trends of aerospace
engineering services are showing more focus on
high value and high skill-intensive work activities
like design tooling and detailed design rather
than commoditised and routine activities such as
drafting and technical documentation.
Background of Engineering Services
Outsourcing
Since the 1990s, the outsourcing of work from
Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) started
with the Information Technology (IT) industry
due to increased cost pressures in the higher
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cost-based developed countries. Generally the
outsourcing of work started with simple low end
based work, which was well defined, scalable and
repeatable. Engineering outsourcing first started
with the automotive industry, followed by industrial
and consumer goods, where low end tasks were
offshored to lower cost based countries. The
aerospace sector was slow to adopt the practise
due to the highly regulated nature of the business
which requires a higher level of safety and
compliance. Nevertheless, as aircraft programmes
became more costly and pressure from airlines
on aircraft prime manufacturers to reduce the
cost of their product line became greater, prime
manufacturers were forced to consider offshoring
some of the work as a way to remain competitive.
The outsourcing and offshoring business
became an integral part of the aerospace
business as deals became larger and offshore
centres increased in size and complexity. Most
of the offshoring work was low end; drafting and
modelling conversions, technical documentation