Managing Complexity: How Aerospace Manufacturers Can Better Manage Their Product Portfolios

From a product perspective, the manufacturing industry faces increasing challenges both accelerating iterative development and tracking physical and digital features across complex lifecycles. The more components and features products have, the greater the complexity of developing a viable, customer-focused end product. One industry in particular that is renowned for its complexity is the aerospace industry. 

Aerospace product development and manufacturing require innovation, precision, and the ability to combat high-stakes challenges within product development. Manufacturers in the aerospace industry must contend with intricate supply chains, stringent compliance requirements, evolving customer expectations, and more. These complications demand unparalleled organization, strategic foresight, and dynamic tools that help achieve the development goals. 

Due to these complexities, manufacturing companies need software tools that do more than focus on streamlined roadmaps; they need strategic product portfolio management tools that give insight into any portion of the portfolio required.

Exploring the Complexities of Aerospace Product Management

Leading manufacturers will encounter challenges, regardless of their industry, such as keeping teams aligned with goals, maintaining transparency for valuable data, and promoting cross-functional collaborations. While the aerospace and defense industries experience those challenges, there are deeper layers of complexity due to the nature of its products. There are strict safety regulations that must be met, quality control processes to pass, long lead times to contend with, and high risks to manage.

Let’s examine these unique challenges in more detail before addressing the solutions and best practices that can help mitigate these complexities.

1. Long Lead Times

Unlike electronics or smaller products, the development cycles for aerospace projects can span years or even decades, involving extensive design, prototyping, testing, and regulatory approval phases. These prolonged timelines demand strategic product management to maintain focus, adapt to evolving requirements, and incorporate technological advancements while still meeting the end goal. 

2. Stringent Compliance Requirements

Aerospace manufacturers must adhere to strict regulatory standards and certifications set by organizations such as the FAA, EASA, or ICAO. Compliance spans safety, environmental impact, and airworthiness, requiring meticulous documentation and thorough audits to meet these high-stakes expectations.

3. Uncompromising Quality Standards

Aerospace products must function flawlessly under extreme conditions, such as high altitudes, temperature variations, and intense mechanical stress. This demand for exceptional quality places immense pressure on engineering teams to innovate and test rigorously. With an airplane that will eventually transport people, cargo, or a combination of both, every component must meet or exceeds specifications.

4. Substantial Risk

Failures in aerospace systems can result in catastrophic consequences, including loss of life, significant financial liabilities, and reputational damage. This amplifies the need for exhaustive risk management strategies and fail-safe designs throughout the development lifecycle.

5. Collaborative Complexity

Aerospace projects often involve multinational partnerships, diverse supply chains, and the coordination of various stakeholders, including governments, private contractors, and research institutions. Ensuring seamless collaboration and communication across these stakeholders adds another layer to management. 

Putting the Strategy into Product Portfolio Management 

As we’ve discussed, aerospace product development is inherently complex. Beyond tackling the technical challenges, companies must ensure that their product innovations are cutting-edge and closely aligned with shifting market demands, changing compliance standards, and broader organizational goals.

Strategic product portfolio management provides a valuable framework to balance these demands effectively. The product portfolio empowers decision-makers to address concerns before they become a problem, helping to minimize risks and drive innovation. 

By offering a comprehensive view of ongoing projects and future opportunities, the product portfolio is the central source of truth for everyone involved in product development. A robust product roadmap software ensures alignment across the organization, enabling teams to prioritize initiatives, adapt to system complexity, and deliver value consistently.

Best Practices for Managing Complex Products in Aerospace Manufacturing

Now that we’ve examined the challenges of manufacturing in the aerospace industry let’s discuss some best practices that can help guide effective product management. 

Break Down Roadmaps into Manageable Phases

Since aerospace projects span years or even decades, it’s essential to divide roadmaps into clear, actionable phases. This phased approach allows teams to focus on immediate objectives, track progress more accurately, and address potential bottlenecks early on. Setting milestones within each phase provides measurable indicators of success, enabling better decision-making and the ability to pivot quickly when challenges arise.

Align Cross-Functional Teams for Better Collaboration

Successful aerospace product development requires seamless collaboration among many different stakeholders, including engineering, operations, marketing, and other departments. Misalignment between these teams can lead to inefficiencies, miscommunication, and potentially costly delays. 

Establishing a culture of cross-functional collaboration, supported by regular communication and shared tools, helps break down silos and ensures all stakeholders work towards a unified goal. Collaboration tools and platforms can further enhance transparency and keep teams on the same page throughout the product lifecycle.

Create Clear Oversight of All Plans and Solutions

With multiple projects often running at the same time, having centralized oversight is crucial. This oversight should provide decision-makers with a bird’s-eye view of the entire portfolio, enabling them to identify overlaps, resolve conflicts, and assess the impact of individual projects on organizational goals. 

A centralized system also makes it easier to evaluate trade-offs between competing priorities, ensuring that decisions support the strategic objectives and that teams can proactively address potential roadblocks.

The Benefits of Gocious for Aerospace Development

Modern software solutions like Gocious are designed to simplify the complexities of aerospace product development. With dynamic product roadmapping tools, teams can adapt their plans in real-time to reflect shifting priorities or conditions.

Comprehensive reporting tools, like the ones available in the Gocious platform, streamline the often daunting compliance process by generating detailed and accurate reports. Together, these capabilities provide aerospace manufacturers with the clarity, flexibility, and control they need to thrive in an increasingly competitive industry. With lifecycle oversight of products and their features or components, product leaders can monitor the entire portfolio for gaps and opportunities to ensure their suite of products performs at their best.

Portfolio Management Tools for Aerospace Manufacturers

Managing aerospace product portfolios requires a balance of strategic planning, cross-functional collaboration, and innovative tools. Aerospace manufacturers who adopt streamlined processes and leverage versatile software can reduce complexity in their processes, improve efficiency across the organization, and drive better outcomes.

At Gocious, we’re helping large-scale industrial manufacturers align their teams and achieve their goals. There are many similarities between industrial manufacturing and aerospace manufacturing, including the level of product complexity, the vast scope of product portfolios, long lead times on development, and the need to comply with regional regulations. Schedule your free demo with the Gocious team to see our platform in action, and learn how we can help transform your product lifecycle management processes today.