Figure 6: New technologies and applications that can be considered for
research and development by Engineering Service Organisations in the
aerospace industry 8
programmes embedded in engineering software
and tools. Many of the engineering calculations
can be laboriously manual or slow due to lack
of computational power in workstations. These
engineering calculations can be expedited by
introducing small programmes that eliminate
the repetitious calculations or by linking them
with other computational systems to resolve
complicated problems.
b) Productivity Improvements
Improving productivity should be one of the
main drivers for reducing operating costs and
increasing profitability. Productivity initiatives
are designed to reduce time taken to complete
a task with the minimum amount of resources to
achieve it. They normally involve a combination of
automation and process improvement activities
so as to maximise the impact on the bottom line.
Process improvement activities can be as simple
as 5S initiatives (Seiri, Seiton, Seiso, Seiketsu,
Shitsuke), continuous improvements (Kaizen),
waste reduction (Muda) or as complex as Six
Sigma methodologies.
The other course of action for engineering
service organisations to remain business viable
would be to develop new business models
in order to capture new customers for new
emerging applications where the competition
is still non-existent or weak. Knowledge-based
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