Chapter 5 - Presentation of the research field and justification of case studies

In this chapter, we start by presenting the aviation industry market and specially the context of equipment manufacturers with current challenges for this ecosystem (see section) We insist through its history the nature of constraints, their formalization and how the industry professionalized over time.

Then, we continue by introducing our research ground and the specificity of Zodiac Aerospace and how relevant it is for our research questions (see chapter 3). The organization structure of this conglomerate of SMEs and history of acquisitions is described in order to provide enough context for the reader to grasp engineering and marketing challenges.

Finally, we will briefly present the selected cases (see section) before diving into the analysis in the following parts 3, 4 and 5. We explain the contribution of each case to our research methodology and to article writing.

Aviation industry market

The aviation industry started off with many successful and failed attempts since the eighteenth century. It is only after the 19th century industrial revolutions that investors and influencers started promoting the development air balloons, Zeppelins and gliders along with engine-powered aircrafts.

In this section, we develop the establishment and evolution of this market, the challenges associated with product development, its perspectives, and the position of a large equipment manufacturer such as Zodiac Aerospace.

Sources used for this section range for courses taken by the researcher during his studies in aeronautical engineering (ISAE-SUPAERO), the Museum of Conservatoire National des Arts-et-Métiers, public domain documentation (Airbus/Boeing market forecasts and EASA/FAA documents) and internal documentation provided by the communication office of Zodiac Aerospace.

A global sector for an increasing traffic

Pioneering, establishment and consolidation

It is usually recognized that the first flight of a fixed-wing powered-aircraft was the Éole in 1890, developed by Clément Ader with the support of the Péreire family - who had previously financed part of Hausman’s renovation. His works were an application of discoveries and theoretical models formulated earlier in the century by George Cayley (first fixed-wing glider and formulation of drag and lift forces and the usefulness of cambered wings¹).

The French Military Ministry had gained interest in his engineering efforts who encouraged further experimentation with the support of the ministry’s engineering departments, a council of professors and the establishment of a school of “aircraftery"². The subsequent developments led to Avion II and Avion III (see Fig.1), the army had plans for observation and bombing. Several experiments were conducted to master the aircraft. However, with the crash of Avion III, the difficulties to explain what lessons could be drawn, and the secrecy imposed by the Army, left C.Ader without any further financial support to continue the trial-and-error process started. As explained by himself in his book (Ader 1907), he may have started too early and it would have been preferable to work publicly. It then abandoned the legacy of the Éole and his larger project of contributing to the National Defence through the founding of a school for aviation.

Clément Ader’s project would be fulfilled later by Colonel Jean-Baptiste Roche when creating the Superior School of Aeronautics and Mechanical Construction in 1909, now known under the name of ISAE-SUPAERO (Toulouse)³. But another trend had gained more visibility in parallel to development attempts of rotating/fixed-wing aircrafts: hot air balloons had been developed starting in 1784 with the Intrépide flying over the Versailles castle with Montgolfier brothers⁴. Several “research companies” (Société d’Études) were established to develop airships with the support of investors (a key venture capitalist at that time was Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe), politicians, and academics from different institutions (Aéro-club de France, Science Academy, Engineering Schools such as Mines ParisTech, Ecole Polytechnique and St Cyr). For example, here are a few key names: Grands Ateliers Aérostatiques du Champ-de-Mars by E.Surcouf in 1880, later renamed Société Astra who would manufacture Wright brothers’ aircraft under licence and Société “Mallet, Mélandri et de Pitray” in 1896 (later named Zodiac in 1911)⁵. They had an industrial vision for these applications that were the hype in that time in World Exhibitions. Along with air races and numerous experiments, applications for the Army and Transportation were also targeted as use cases. They had been validated for instance during the American Civil War with the Union Army Balloon Corps⁶.

Besides airships, technology transfers and alternative approaches where developed during the same period such as the effort of Alberto Santos-Dumont with the famous 14bis (1906) and Demoiselle (1907) fixed-wing aircrafts, Henry Fabre (first seaplane in 1910) and Coanda’s first alleged jet engines (ducted air fan with combustion chamber in 1910), Appareils d’Aviation Les Frères Voisin (est. 1906, later split and integrated into what would become Gnome&Rhône est. 1905, i.e. SNECMA/Safran Aircraft Engines) and Blériot Aéronautique, a constituent of today’s Airbus along with former Dassault Aviation (Société des Avions Marcel Bloch, est. 1929) who had merged with pioneering work of Bréguet Aviation (est. 1911).

Of course, the list is not exhaustive, but we would like to stress the numerous links tied by inventors and investors across several decades of experiments, partnerships and industrial settings. And similar stories could also be presented in other countries of Europe and North America.

The frenzy was also channelled by the founding of companies such as Compagnie générale transaérienne (est.1908 by Blériot) Compagnie des Messagers Aériens (founded in 1919 by Bréguet, Blériot, Renault and Caudron) and Compagnie Générale Aéropostale (est. 1918, by Pierre-Georges Latécoère) who created a market to sustain an emerging industry besides military applications. The former would then be acquired by growing competition, mergers to become Air France for instance.

The premises of the aviation industry was a collective effort of engineering where a dominant design was gradually established discarding airships for reliability issues. Different architectures with engines moving from the back (pusher) to the front of the fuselage (tractor), different profiles for lift and drag trade-offs (“canard configuration”, box-kite) and steering/stability equipment (box-kite, dihedral, rudders, ailerons), fixed wheels or idlers, etc.

A turning point: jet age

Following major improvements made during and after World War I (WWI), the jet era would finally come to existence despite first tentative steps made by Henri-Marie Coanda in 1910. The latter being marginalized during the second exhibition of the International Aeronautic Salon in October 1910 against standard designs and persisting doubts/controversies on the actual airworthiness of the aircraft and the engine (ducted air fan or actual jet engine). The figures below show the Coanda-1910 ([sub:Coanda1910]) versus the two dominant designs of that time: airships and unshrouded propellers aircrafts ([sub:Salon1909] and [sub:Salon1910]).

As several records would be broken by aviators (distance, time and speed), aircraft designers and manufacturers would also compete in engineering novel engines, optimising propellers, materials, in addition to wing and fuselage designs. For instance, one can recall the success of Blériot XI when crossing the English Channel against Antoinette aircraft, encouraging its promotion during the 1st Paris Air show (see Fig. [sub:Salon1909]).

Conceptual models and theoretical efforts were made by physicists and engineers building upon the earlier works of George Cayley in the 19th century. Besides the need for pilot training such as rudimentary “tonneau Antoinette", wind tunnels were built to formalize design parameters in addition to testing facilities sponsored by the army. For example, Gustave Eiffel wind tunnels built in 1909 in Paris (Champ de Mars) (Gallant 2002; Barr 1992) contributed not only to mechanical engineering for buildings but also to aerodynamics.

Air Transportation would only start to exist with several routes of airships in North America and Europe, but with WWI bombers converted for passengers, the first airlines were created and dedicated aircraft designs such as the Farman Goliath F60 derived from the F50 bomber (see Fig. 3). With increasing speeds, optimization of turbo-propellers, sonic speeds can be reached at the propellers tips, so shrouded configurations can be beneficial encouraging the development of ducted-fan and then turbofan, a kind of jet engine.

Advancements in jet engines became a major architectural innovation for heavier-than-air aircrafts (Henderson and Clark 1990). It sets a milestone in the development of long haul flights and commercial aviation. It would be hard to say that it was unexpected for established industrial players. However, it raises the issue of perception and cognition of change in product design (incremental, radical, architectural and modular) and the ecosystem deals with the emergence of this shifts.

The onset of the jet era occurred with the commercial aviation intensification, flight routes tailored supporting a wider phenomenon usually dubbed “globalization”. Distances are shortened, leisure is democratized for wider categories of population, with major emphasis put on the efficiency of engines for airlines operations.

The frequency and variety of aircraft missions across the globe also raised numerous evolutions for safety and robustness. Redundancy is the baseline for most aircraft systems (operational). Several other architectural innovations can be listed in the evolution such as the elimination of the Flight Engineer in the cockpit as a side-effect of development of electronics and digital commands.

Market order and segmentation

Major players and market organization

The market is mainly organized by aircraft manufacturers who integrate the systems and equipment (co-)designed by suppliers. It is hardly impossible to avoid the prescription mechanisms associated to Boeing and Airbus, and marginally by Bombardier, Embraer and increasingly Irkut and Comac. Several mergers of engineering services and manufacturers consolidated what Boeing and Airbus are today. For instance, Boeing absorbed McDonnell Douglas, Airbus is the result of the merger of Sud Aviation and Nord Aviation to become first Aérospatiale. Forces were joined, redistributing the roles of among historic roles: airframers, structural part engineering and aircraft integration.

Overall, the market can be seen as an oligopoly for systems and equipment manufacturers. The whole being layered to meet the integration requirements of the aircraft manufacturer. See Fig. 4 for further details.

After numerous series of mergers and acquisitions at all market levels, the number of players has reduced drastically. This consolidation has put a certain order and hierarchy in market relationships, encouraging players to by-pass some players to gain insight.

One can refer for instance to the mapping built by Grundman Advisory from 1993 to 2016. A few more can be added such as Safran acquiring Zodiac Aerospace and United Technologies Corporation (UTC) with Rockwell Collins (who recently acquired B/E Aerospace). The very large mapping (pdf format) can be accessed on Grundman’s Advisory news section: Aviation Week publishes Grundman Opinion, “A map of aerospace mergers and acquisitions”⁷.

Given this context, airlines undergoing changes in demographics, population displacement, market design (e.g. hub structure) have evolving requirements for aircraft missions: longer routes, multiple stopovers across a continent, low maintenance etc. The aircraft manufactures perform a preliminary proposal to meet their key customers (major airlines).

Aircrafts can be categorized in now three groups: short/long haul, and currently business magazines tend to introduce the concept of “middle-of-market”. Below, Fig. 5 shows along two performance criteria the three sets of aircrafts. Despite visual and alleged similarities between short/long haul aircrafts, physics, design rules and systems’ architectures do not allow a simple rule of three. Aircraft programs are spanned across roughly a decade in average (from the early designs to first delivery) mobilizing several suppliers in a co-development process and requirements cascaded down along the hierarchy of product/service design.

Among suppliers, as most players are conglomerate of SMEs, these follow in broad strokes the perimeters given by the ATA chapters (Air Transportation Association). The classification is originally intended for engineers and technicians performing repairs and maintenance duties on aircrafts. Aircraft systems are covered from ATA no.20 to 92. For example, ATA 44 corresponds to Cabin Systems, where one can find the following sub-systems:

• 44-00 General

• 44-10 Cabin Core System

• 44-20 In-flight Entertainment System

• 44-30 External Communication System

• 44-40 Cabin Mass Memory System

• 44-50 Cabin Monitoring System

• 44-60 Miscellaneous Cabin System

As one can see, it does not cover for instance several “monuments” found in the cabin: seats, class dividers, lavatories, galleys, etc. ATA follows a system architecture description and the cabin domain should be seen as an area sanctuarised by airline for customization and branding. Naturally, it has more players specialized equipment certified by Technical Standard Order (TSO, see below for further details).

Importance of safety and regulations

First safety regulation can be associated with a publication of the Paris Police headquarters dating from April 23, 1784. It followed the flight of the hot air balloon built by the Montgolfier brothers in late 1783 for King Louis XVI at Versailles castle:

It shall be unlawful to manufacture and lift off balloons and other aerostatic machines with heaters using wine spirit, fire crackers and other flammable materials and orders that all other aerostatic balloons may not take-off without permission. Such permission shall only be granted to people with recognized experience and capability…

From the early delays, the approach to aircraft safety came as insurance for justifying on one hand what objects were safe and reliable according to a set of standardized criteria and on the other hand the how and the who required to design, develop and sustain these objects.

Despite some differences between the rules established for North America and Europe - Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) respectively - they ensure airworthiness⁸ along four main domains:

• Monitoring Safety issues

• Product Certified & Checked

• Safety Rules & regulations

• Approved Organizations

These topics are declined in the certification process that is recognized with the issue of Type Certificate for the aircraft and associated scope covering critical systems and equipment (e.g. electrical power generation and distribution). In addition, almost standalone equipment such as engine have their own Type Certificate and “less critical"⁹ equipment with Technical Standard Order (TSO); so they can be qualified and certified with a relative independence from the aircraft manufacturer.

The general process is described in the Fig. 6 pictures the phases until the release of a form (e.g. EASA Form-1/FAA 8130-3) validating the conformity of the manufactured/repaired product given an extensive list of justification documents issued by Design, Manufacturing and Maintenance activities. The figure also insists on the fact that airworthiness is maintained throughout the life of the product, meaning until it is dismantled and removed from the aircraft fleet.

The certification and crucial airworthiness aspect, a more technical set of requirements are addressed by system/equipment/technology/material-specific standards. These are issued by several regulatory bodies such as SAE International (Society of Automotive Engineers) issuing Aerospace Recommended Practice (ARP), EUROCAE (European Organization for Civil Aviation Equipment), RTCA (Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics) issuing standards for instance “Environmental Conditions and Test Procedures for Airborne Equipment”, MIL-STD from the US Military Standard, etc. Qualification and design processes requirements are largely compliant with these standards in addition to customer requirements.

Last but not least, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has greatly contributed to the standardization of processes with ISO9100 / AS9100 (Aerospace Basic Quality System Standard).

Challenges and future changes

The market is rapidly growing based on surveys and forecasts made by Boeing and Airbus on yearly basis. Asia-Pacific countries are greatly contributing to this trend with legacy aircrafts being retrofitted in major American and European countries despite several external shocks.

35000 aircrafts will be delivered by 2036, among which 13000 are for replacement and the rest being actual new deliveries growth. Traffic will keep on increasing with rate per annum from 2.5% between advanced countries up to 6.2% between emergent countries taking most of the traffic share (40%). Finally, several other trends can be foreseen with environmental considerations, passengers demographics and changing urban mobility.

Greener aircrafts

The rising awareness of human’s activity on Earth has also encouraged the aviation industry to develop means of reducing its greenhouse effect share. For instance, from the viewpoint of fuel combustion, optimizing engines with a criteria such as number of passengers per kilometre per litre of kerosene in addition to emitted $CO_2$ and $NOx$ particles per number of passengers per kilometre. Tremendous engineering efforts were made to enhance the efficiency of the combustion chambers, engine sections (fan, compressor and turbines) and overall architecture (by-pass). These efforts are still on going with open-rotor engine. Taxiing of aircrafts could also be changed to avoid burning fuel with electrical drive in landing gears or pushback car integrated on taxiing rails.

Other architectures such as delta wing for commercial aircrafts and V-formation flight (inspired by geese flying patterns) have been imagined by industrial actors. These approaches also tend to think the overall aircraft and its integration within the airspace and airports. Incremental innovations however can be designed by using lighter materials while guaranteeing strength. For instance, marginal improvements on wingtips or using composite materials for the skin of wings and fuselage reduce overall weight. Nevertheless, these replacement are not modular as it dramatically reduces the electromagnetic shielding required against thunderstorms or simple electromagnetic interferences. Shielding should then be improved across wirings and harnesses needed for fly-by-wire systems¹⁰ and several other electricity powered devices.

A greener aircraft does not only imply optimization along several green-performance-indicators exploiting the dominant design, nor replacing some features, but also has a greater impact on the architecture of the aircraft itself and sensitivity to the evolutions of the aircraft integration (e.g. airport, air traffic patterns, flight route demands, etc.)

Passenger demographics and trends

Passengers through airlines interaction the evolution of the market. Passengers are more and more observed and consulted by airlines, aircraft manufacturers and equipment manufacturers. Beyond traditional satisfaction survey, creativity sessions and ethnographic observations in “labs”¹¹.

Currently, the expectation of passengers are changing. Let us take, for instance, the evolution of seats in the cabin. Historically, no distinction existed. Then with the gradual democratization, class segments were created: first, club and economy. The club disappeared to be replaced by the idea of a business class, with now sometimes dense business class, reducing the size of the first that aims for a hotel-like experience. These nuances should also be declined depending on culture and flight routes across the globe.

Ageing population is another concern for cabin layout including: seating and lavatories. Reduced mobility of certain categories of passengers also causes several issues for seating, movement along corridors and reaching for different cabin areas. Seats architecture and access are modified, additional equipment to assist are also designed.

So called millenials emphasize the rising ubiquity of (Internet) connectivity on mainland and ground transportation. Airlines have been gradually shaping the business model of connectivity with new suppliers and services providers offering solutions guaranteeing an almost continuous connectivity. From traditional shared displays hanging over seats, to seat-centric inflight-entertainment, the passengers are now also willing to connect to existing solutions: in-flight connectivity (Wi-Fi and entertainment server) supported by antennae and ground/space relays, and active/passive displays for mirror casting personal device content or accessing airline provided content.

These novelties being transferred from an evolving society and use cases where aircraft experience may appear old fashioned. They bring numerous uncertainties to a professionalized and highly constrained engineering. New product development may then fit the given architecture but may also encourage the generation of ad-hoc solutions and reconfiguration of (epistemic) interdependencies.

Urban mobility

Finally, another major trend is the regain in urban mobility. The reducing flight times and connecting time at stopovers, has dramatically reduced distances across the globe. Combining this trend with city expansion, road and general public transportation can become saturated to point where other means must be developed. In cities of high inequalities such as Sao Paulo, helicopters are an efficient alternative to travel across the city avoid traffic jams for those who can afford. Social imaginaries tend to contribute to urban mobility effort on adapting aircraft to fly safely through the city skies. Science fiction works in literature and movies have embodied these ideas for more than a century.

However, it is gradually becoming a reality with Unmanned Aerial Vehicle’s technologies developed in the past two decades. Automation, algorithmic robustness, and mastering of flight dynamics for quadcopter designs for instance were key in addressing the scaling of remote control devices to civil/military applications, and up to autonomous taxi.

In the last 5 years, several initiatives, usually referred as Passenger Drones, were launched. In China, eHang 184 flew early 2018, in Germany, Lilium is being developed, in Dubai and Germany the Volocopter was developed and test flights were conducted, Airbus has two concepts developed in two different centres: a traditional vertical-take-off and landing (VTOL) called Vahana, and a modular solution combined with car Pop.Up. These passenger drones enable on-demand air transportation expanding the horizons of taxi fleets and personal/public transportation with safer means of flight travel that are not reachable with traditional light aviation airworthiness.

The evolution of the market order and segmentation given the highlighted trends encourage equipment manufacturers to carefully reconsider the way products and services are developed. In the following section, we develop how projects and programs are managed given the aviation history depicted previously. Its professionalization has established rules, processes and structures to support new product development which we will address at the light of several novelties, increasing uncertainties and the need to innovate, i.e. managing the unknown.

Zodiac Aerospace Innovation Context

In this section, we propose to present the context of the research project offered by Zodiac Aerospace. We cover its overall organization, its history, examples of major innovations in the aviation industry and how R&T and Innovation are managed across the group of SMEs.

General organization: conglomerate of SMEs

The thesis was conducted at the Technical & Innovation Direction of Zodiac Aerospace (ZSA, holding). Established in 1896 by Maurice Mallet, the venture initially targeted airship and fabric engineering. It has now turned into a large industrial group of 75 entities designing, developing and manufacturing aeronautical equipment for aircraft/helicopters manufacturer and airlines. These are located over 100 facilities across the globe and mainly centralized in Europe and North America. In the last couple of decades, some facilities were established in cost-competitive countries for the serial production of some entities.

The group of SMEs where each of them, with a few hundreds employees each, equating to a total of 35,000, have their own responsibility and performance logic. A light group holding of 200 employees with several support functions have the challenge to manage the sometimes competing SMEs due to the market structures and build up synergies targeted by the executive committee. As shown in the following page, we present the variety of Zodiac Aerospace products that can be found on an aircraft. The segmentation by branches dates from 2015, but the current status is a merge between Cabin & Structures and Galleys & Equipment (now called Zodiac Cabin), and Aircraft Systems and Aerosafety (now called Zodiac Aerosystems). Most equipment is represented by a single business unit, overlap is rare between entities. For example, in the kitchen area (galley) the configuration is the following with all separate engineering departments, standards and regulations and sales channels:

• The galley structure (frame, panels and fixtures) is developed by Zodiac Galleys Europe/US

• The inserts (oven, boilers, coffee makers, bun warmers and ice containers) are developed by Zodiac Electrical Inserts Europe/US

• The trolleys designed by Zodiac Air Catering Equipment

• The lavatories are composed of the lining/decorative elements (Zodiac Airline Interior Integration) and of toilet seat and underlying water & waste systems (Zodiac Water & Waste Systems)

A history of complementary niche strategy

Zodiac Aerospace, actually stems from the separation with Zodiac Marine. The former Zodiac Group had been expanding between seas and skies with technology transfers from air balloons to inflatable boat¹², and several other extensions playing on complementarities to expand its footprint.

The history of mergers and acquisitions, leaving aside the former Zodiac Marine group of entities, can be traced back to the seventies with EFA (Parachutes in United States) reopening the aeronautics branch as shown in the figure below (Fig. 8). The main drivers for acquisitions, as explained on Zodiac Aerospace corporate presentation, are synthesized into five key principles:

1. Diversifying in businesses with a high technological content, through internal and external growth

2. Favouring niche markets to rapidly attain leader positions

3. Ensuring steady growth in earnings per share

4. Supporting customers over the long-term through a strong after-sales activity

5. Aligning our operations with the Principles of the Global Compact

The first group of acquisitions intended to gain stronghold in the aircraft safety systems market whilst still developing some related marine activities around rubber coated fabrics (Kléber Industries), flexible tanks (Superflexit), parachutes (EFA, Parachutes de France) and arresting/evacuation systems (Air Cruisers, Aerazur). The family shareholders’ trust put in the newly appointed CEO Jean-Louis Gérondeau. He led an external growth strategy helping the financial recovery and building a strong position in the aircraft equipment market. The strategy was then extended with several other niche markets (mainly oligopoly) with high added value justified by complex engineering know-how complying with safety and airworthiness regulations. For instance, early nineties was the entry into the aircraft seating (Weber Aircraft, Sicma Aero Seat), water & waste systems (Monogram/MAG Aero and Avon) and oxygen devices as well as sensing and systems management (Groupe Intertechnique).

Overall, we have more than 40 acquisitions since late seventies which enabled diversification around the inflatable boat decaying market with sport and leisure perspectives. But mostly, the group regained a leadership position in the aircraft equipment market by federating numerous SMEs.

As told by Olivier Zarrouati¹³ during an open interview in May 2018 conducted by the PhD candidate:

We scouted our environment for niches with high added value, after a selection process, we would then make sure that new business unit will be able to perform and hold its position in the market. When it comes then to innovative concepts, the trick is really to make sure they understand the value of novelty on their own and not by forcing it by top management.

This mindset was also confirmed by a separate interview made with the Vice President of the group, Maurice Pinault, former CEO of Zodiac Marine activities.

Feats of engineering

The history of Zodiac Aerospace has left several landmarks in the domain of engineering. Starting the nascent airship venture, engineering know-how was developed for fabric engineering and sewing techniques. Then, when redeveloping the company in the aircraft market over less than three decades, the group developed its competencies in complex engineering for aircraft systems, and material and stress engineering for cabin equipment.

Technical fabric and associated technologies

The airship industry at the wake of the $20^{th}$ century required not only building an understanding of models of flight mechanics but being able to design, engineering and manufacture robust fabric assemblies. Standards of quality or test engineering were being gradually established. Tensile strength of a piece of a fabric was crucial but sewing techniques was an even more critical feature of these assemblies. Advanced Sewing techniques were required for overall resistance to aerodynamic forces (lift and drag) and associated designs.

With growing competition in an established market of inflatable boat, Zodiac Aerospace managed to expand these competencies with the parachute industry, inflatable boats, airbags, emergency evacuation systems (slides, life rafts) and arresting systems (nets and harnesses on runways). Several of these high skilled work can also be observed in weaving and braiding techniques for conduits and hoses for harsh environments. The developed industry thus greatly differs from clothing industry with safety and airworthiness standards that imply a wide spectrum of physical variables (temperature, tensile in static/dynamic modes). It has greatly contributed to the unique position in a quasi-duopoly with strong commercial and technical bonds with aircraft manufacturers (Airbus, Boeing and McDonnell Douglas).

Zodiac Aerospace has dominated the market of Parachutes, aircraft arresting and evacuation systems and also part of the market associated with braided/woven products. Unique technologies were developed to remain competitive in several areas: flexible fuel tanks, open sleeves for electrical harnesses and net arresting systems.

Composites materials and cabin equipment

Early nineties, the Zodiac group had been developing the leisure and sport marine domain to expand the inflatable boat market (Zodiac, Avon and Bombard product lines). Their entry into the aircraft seating market was done through Weber company who also had several engineering and manufacturing capabilities in aircraft parts and synergies with its former conglomerate Walter Kidde and Company Inc who had sold the business to a largely diversified British conglomerate (Hanson PLC).¹⁴ Kidde had also a foot in the inflatable boat market during the war effort. A similar move was operated with SICMA in France, which had been developing aircraft structural part, seats and also skis and tennis rackets.

Engineering could be then developed in the domain of material engineering. Structural parts for pilot, crew and passenger seating were developed and kept leadership by meeting and developing further safety and certification requirements with authorities. The rest of the cabin would then require similar technical capabilities for stress and flammability constraints.

All cabin interiors and galley’s area require qualification and certification competencies to package for instance kitchen appliances to airworthiness standards. All of which also requires to withstand severe static and dynamic mechanical testing which are complex to monitor and use for further design of assemblies and parts. Furthermore, standardization is not common in this market because of market volumes and changing demand of airlines looking for unique branding opportunities.

Aircraft systems

At the end of the $20^{th}$ century, the group continued to settle its position in other fields of the aircraft equipment market. Monogram (MAG Aerospace) and Groupe Intertechnique were acquired. They had respectively developed themselves in the field of water & waste systems engineering and embedded systems for aircraft operations (computer, printed circuit boards, fuel gauging systems, oxygen masks and control systems). These two first acquisitions were a key advantage to secure market niches. Added value is accomplished through complex system engineering, functional robustness and secured certification capabilities for further product development. It was the occasion to combine engineering competencies into the creation of a business unit in the field of airbags for automotive industry with inflatable technical fabric and precise control electronic systems.

Later, these activities would be complemented by several power electronics generation and distribution (ECE, Zodiac Electrical Power Systems), wiring parts/systems and hydraulic, servo-control and ducting systems. The underlying SMEs acquired on such domains had been building their field first through components and quickly grew into engineering of sub-systems and full systems in order to cover regulation and certification domain. Several breakthroughs can be mentioned such as inerting systems for fuel tanks, oxygen regulators, or even metal fabrication in harsh environments.

Today’s R&T and Innovation: an oddity for innovation management?

ZSTC and Experts Network

Established in 2010 by the managing director of former Intertechnique group (covering former Aerotechnique group of activities, i.e. Fuel & Control Systems and Oxygen Systems), the Zodiac Scientific and Technical Council (ZSTC) gathers engineering managers and R&T managers equally representing the variety of activities in the group. It was created for four main objectives:

• Prepare technological evolution for the decade ahead and reinforce synergies: long-term Technology Road Map were created to fit market & sales perspectives to feed product lines.

• Value technical experts across the company: expert career path created with Human Resources for engineers preferring a technical career instead of one dedicated to management¹⁵.

• Reinforce relationships with academia, start-ups, innovative suppliers and potential partners: incentives to host PhD candidates in R&T departments, collaborative research programs, TechnoDays seminars to gather people around common topics (e.g. composite materials, electronics, systems engineering, etc.).

• Reinforce Intellectual Property protection and management, as well as R&T management practice (guidelines and procedures)

The council creation was supported by the Vice President of the group (Maurice Pinault) for its strategic leverage:

It is a major leverage of growth for the Group such ours which designs and manufacturers the most complex systems and that is required to meet regulation constraints and quality & safety requirements increasingly harder. In 2010, we created the ZSTC to improve the performance of our technological research, to gather necessary resources for our competitivity and foster the development of cross-cutting innovation with high added value.¹⁶

The joint effort contributed to encourage transversality through some major disciplines for the group such as material flammability, power electronics, systems engineering and composite material engineering and manufacturing. TechnoDays have been organized for these topics, experts were nominated locally in business units, and through round of interviews experts gain different status degrees of the career path:

Late Creation of R&T function through TRL assessment

Given this initial background and internal efforts made in the business units Zodiac Fuel & Control Systems to constitute a dedicated R&T Team (in 2012-2013), workshops were organized with the support of a consultancy firm to define and implement technology road maps (TRMs) for all business units. With a bottom-up approach validated by top management strategy, road maps were fed with marketing and sales data picturing the future markets and technologies were identified to enable and facilitate potential market access. Aircraft and equipment manufacturers had been implementing the notion of Technology Readiness Level (TRL) which streamlined the road-mapping.

Guidelines were subsequently written to support the rollout of this new language and practice. Business units were then able to provide and use a maturity assessment canvas for the technologies in development and the road ahead for integration. The president of the ZSTC was then appointed Chief Technical Officer (CTO) of the Zodiac Aerospace group, a new position created by the CEO. His role consisted in gradually institutionalizing the R&T function in business units, supporting them for public funding opportunities and auditing the practice of R&T and innovation management (TRL assessment, TRM, patent application and PhD subjects).

An innovation locus where exploration project management and organizational design clash

So far, we have portrayed in the previous pages the history of aircraft engineering, the establishment of design rules and the acquisitions strategy of Zodiac Aerospace. Several key features can be listed characterizing the innovation context for Zodiac Aerospace (see below).

• An industrial ecosystem at stake with increasing uncertainties and unknown due to strong segregated rigidities mirrored by engineering, safety and regulations but facing potential radical transformations of architecture

• Complexity and difficulty to master a full system (architecture and components) - myopic behaviours

• Architectures defined in a contingent manner by the ecosystem raising uncertainties and the unknown shifts

• Urge to innovate for strategic competitive advantage in the wake of a radical change

• A consolidated market made of conglomerate but without being traditional divisional firms

• Autonomy and responsibility of individual SMEs but the necessity to orchestrate their interdependencies to innovate

• Projects situated in a intra-BU and inter-BU context challenging product/service design and organizations simultaneously

• A light corporate team dedicated to innovation with several relay networks (professions, experts)

Zodiac Aerospace presents a distributed innovation management with an ongoing standardization for processes (Quality Management System) and to some extent structures (R&T department separated from Development Engineering). Each BU has its own responsibility and dedicated financial reporting. They all face their own market segment with the associated professionalisation but also the urge to embrace uncertainties and the unknown to innovate.

This situation encourages to understand the place in the (aircraft) system architecture, the interfaces, the interdependencies and knowledge yet to be discovered to guide exploration and consider synergies with other BUs. It is a concern for top management as they worry about the strategy of this portfolio of SMEs.

The CEO and VP¹⁷ have stressed the idea the intent was to secure the niches in the long run, but still develop their own capabilities to prepare the future. They specified the importance of branch directors to oversee the portfolio of business units to build a sustainable strategy for them. Top management had for instance launched several initiatives they considered to be key for the group or gave a place for bottom-up projects.

For example, transversality was gradually being organized with communities of experts, TechnoDays, (in)formal communities of practice for engineering and R&T managers at the BU or division level. Top management also decided to launch projects and places were novel products and services could be developed in-between the organizational boundaries or just seen as strategic for the whole group. A fuel-cell project was launched, hosted by a business unit with the prospect to developing this technology for the aircraft equipment market with perspectives on electricity, water and heat management. Two teams were set near aircraft manufactures: one near Airbus and the other by Boeing. These teams were composed of several engineers, designers and managers from different business units. They dedicated 50% of their time to technical support for their BU of origin; the rest was dedicated to business intelligence and innovation management. Workshops, prototyping, and presentations were regularly organized by the team to generate concepts sometimes in partnership with clients, users and also representatives of BUs.

The gradual rationalization of the R&T and Innovation activities since 2010 with the establishment of R&T and Innovation management within each BU was supplemented by an effort coordinated by top management to the develop even more radical design of products and services. The former tend to address incremental innovation, sometimes radical ones aimed through a path punctuated by several steps to test their environment. For instance, long term projects are part of partnership agreement funded by institutions such as associative, national or international Research Councils. The latter were a means for the Executive Committee to protect existing niches from more radical concepts.

In these specific case raising strategic interest, such project were addressed in a different locus breaking away from the existing and protected organization design: the multi-BU committee was rather convenient. Otherwise, the Business Unit being is considered as an indivisible unit. It encourages the development of alternative approaches: fostering exploration topics, steering committees for valuation and strategy, and project management.

Case studies selection

Brief case description

Below, we present the different case studies conducted at Zodiac Aerospace and that where discussed in five different articles in Appendix. Due to organizational dimension of innovation management of this conglomerate of SMEs, and the organization design, we propose to split the cases in two categories: intra-BU and inter-BU. The trajectory of studied projects were, in fact, more or less contained within the perimeter of a business unit, market segment, qualification/certification requirements. Other cases were deliberately set in between these boundaries or across with top management sponsorship.

Intra-BU cases

Icing conditions detection

Business Class Seat platform

Hypoxia protection - researcher’s intervention

Inter-BU cases

Airbus Development Team - Design Thinking cases

Lower deck

Connected Cabin

Multi-BU committee

Associated paper writing

Anomaly detection - Case studies and written papers

Modelling and intervention - Case studies and written papers

Chapter synthesis

References