Press Release
Key companies of the Aerospace and Defence Industry have launched a new association to build up the digital ecosystem for aerospace and defence, DECADE-X. The purpose of it is to meet the challenges of Aerospace & Defence with a digital collaborative ecosystem of interoperable solutions.
The main success factors to ensure the future of our Aerospace and Defence sector are on one hand the ability to deliver on time and at the level of quality excellence the several thousands of aircraft – all types – which make up today the order book of the years to come. On the other hand it is to prepare the next generation of products and services that meet environmental and societal challenges.
This success depends on our ability to involve and collaborate with more than 10,000 players in our complex and interdependent supply chain which does involve a very large proportion of Small & Medium Enterprises.
Our 4 priority areas are:
The resilience of our supply chain
The industrialization of new products
Product conformity and adaptation to regulations (e.g. export control, data act)
Sustainable and responsible development
In 2023, 18 key industrial players of the sector evaluated the innovative concept of Data Space as key to achieve sovereign, interoperable and trustworthy data-sharing across the industry based on principles, technical framework and standards developed by organizations such as Gaia-X. They also confirmed that this represents a major opportunity to develop multi-level and interoperable collaborative solutions for all stakeholders and more particularly for Small & Medium Enterprises.
In 2024, we have brought together the strengths of the sector to develop a digital ecosystem based on this concept. To coordinate efforts across our industry and to lead this international collaborative project by the industrial players of our sector, we are announcing the launch of an association called the Digital ECosystem for Aerospace and DEfence, with the short name DECADE-X with already Airbus, Boost Aerospace, Collins, Diehl Aviation, Liebherr and Thales as a start.
This international association will complete, connect and work in very close collaboration with additional very dynamic development initiatives supported by public funding like the German consortium Aerospace-X launched in Germany in April 2024 with 30 partners (within Manufacturing-X context) and a potential additional consortium in France in the coming months with 6 partners.
At the core of the DECADE-X mission are the principles of data sovereignty, interoperability, security and inclusive representation at all industry levels. Hence, the association has a structure and governance which is independent from the ones of its founding members, ensuring effective oversight of international governance, standardisation, certification and seamless technical integration addressing both Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and large industry leaders. This includes the control & certification of key federated services such as identity management, semantic hubs, data contracts, application stores, data catalogues, clearing houses and connectors.
Nevertheless, to ensure that we can leverage such a new way to collaborate to overcome our current challenges in a very practical manner, our approach is to be organised per business use cases addressing each time a very specific topic in collaboration with the right experts of the sector. For instance, we have prioritised use cases around multi-tier traceability to ensure conformity and demonstrate compliance with regulations and some use cases on quality to solve in a quicker way any quality findings. Herewith the association focuses on three main areas which are:
- Setting standards, driving governance, and fostering business accountability.
- Representing and amplifying the industry collective voice on ecosystem features, including developments, IP strategies, accessibility, and fees.
- Facilitating financial support from states, institutions, and companies to meet industry funding needs and requirements. Through these initiatives, DECADE-X will drive the Aerospace and Defence industry into the path of the new digital innovation and collaboration era.
Through these initiatives, DECADE-X will drive the Aerospace and Defence industry into the path of the new digital innovation and collaboration era.
From current discontinued digital supply chain landscape…
… To new end-to-end Ecosystem owned by industrial partners