Abstract
Abstract
To adapt to fast-changing industrial disruption, Airbus Defence and Space and Airbus Operations recently developed a novel approach to innovation platforms. Drawing inspiration from the established models of corporate accelerators, it brings about two unprecedented novelties. One is the creation of two complementary innovation spaces working in symbiosis: an internal space (on-site) aimed at fostering incremental innovation, with a strong focus on hardware and processes; and an external space (off-site, centrally located) aimed at fostering disruptive innovation through exposure and support to ideas and models coming from other industries, academics, the start-up scene, and the general public. These spaces are interconnected, providing the right balance of corporate skills support and creative solutions for societal and industrial good. The other novelty is the first-ever combination of the space and aerospace competencies as part of the same innovation platforms. An equal share of support is provided by the relevant Airbus parties, bringing new opportunities for technology transfer, synergies, and new business model generation. This requires the alignment of stakeholders' interests, the definition of a common process, governance scheme, and funding mechanism. This model is being tested at the site of Bremen, Germany, with potential further development across other Airbus sites in Europe and has already allowed the generation of innovation.
Introduction
Accelerating societal and technological changes force established industries to follow a simple law of evolution: adapt or die. Aerospace companies, often used to government backing, are now becoming no exception to this rule. The aim of our project is to turn these apparent risks into opportunities through engineered innovation platforms.
We will first look at the external and internal environmental conditions of our business, together with a review of best practices. These will provide the initial conditions to present our novel approach. We will then look at how symbiotic platforms enable innovation by presenting the creation of an internal space, an external space, their processes, and the key element of their combination. We will further proceed examining how the partnership of space and aeronautics further drives innovation and how to rightly implement it. We will finally present and discuss the results of concrete platforms we have set up following this integrated model.
The Environment and Initial Conditions
External Environment
The space and aeronautical industrial landscape has long been dominated by large corporations. The capital investment, operational expenditures, workforce qualification and size, and political influence required to run such ventures are the main reasons for traditional concentration of activities under a few large players, which often cover both industries (Airbus, Boeing, and Lockheed Martin). This industrial polarization is also driven by the market: major customers of space industrial services are governmental entities ordering large-scale projects; in the case of aeronautics, customers are airlines looking primarily for safety, reliability, and longevity—hardly a case for a typical small business.
However, the environment of these industries is currently undergoing disruption at many levels; first, a change in the customer behavior. In the space case, traditionally stable governmental clients are under financial pressure as immediate issues from national agendas take precedence over a fading aura of prestige provided by space programs. Companies looking for growth therefore need to investigate new markets. In the case of aeronautics, new needs appear, driven by societal changes: an environmental need to limit pollution and acoustic impacts; and a need to adapt to new living patterns: megacities and instant communication with expectations of instant travel. These needs impose new design requirements.
Then, a change in the competition landscape, a consequence of an ongoing disruption in the electronics, manufacturing, and information technology industries. As notably observed in the exponential growth analysis of Diamandis, 1 electronics hardware has miniaturized, its price plummeted, and it is becoming mainstream thanks to the advent of consumer platforms such as Raspberry Pi. Mechanical design is also becoming mainstream as 3D printer affordability reaches household levels. New information technologies and coming of age of the information society bring knowledge available to all who look for it—even design of space and aeronautical projects. This revolution not only eases the traditional work of established companies but it also lowers the market barriers of entry and generates a host of new entrants.
Finally, a change where society is becoming an inclusive part of the industry's environment. In earlier times, public opinion had no involvement in space and aeronautical projects due to the lack of communication channels and to the complexity of the material. The aforementioned rise of the information society not only educates the public but also provides it with digital influential levers that can affect political and industrial stakeholders. As examples, societal returns of human spaceflight are now being pressed by public opinion; and personal comfort and customer-concerned environmental issues are rising priorities for airlines.
Internal Environment
An additional pillar to factor, when executing such projects in a corporate environment, is the company structure and direction.
The Airbus Group is divided into three entities: Airbus, the aircraft manufacturer; Airbus Helicopters, the helicopter manufacturer; and Airbus Defence and Space, provider of missions and solutions across the whole range of military and space activities, including launchers, satellites, exploration and commercial spacecrafts, and orbital infrastructures. The entities are scattered around the world, mostly in Europe, where they may share common sites due to a history of mergers, acquisitions, and reorganizations. Among them, the site of Bremen (Germany) is shared by Airbus and Airbus Defence and Space in a city with active space, aerospace, energy, automotive, and academic communities. This site is therefore of particular interest to test synergetic innovation platforms.
Review of Best Practices
As pointed out by Midgley, 2 effective corporate innovation works when considered a strategic pillar of a company, with its own roadmap and processes such as a stage-gate method. Before developing our model, we propose a brief review of how companies typically implement corporate innovation practices as part of their strategy.
Internal innovation
It is often heard that employees are the best asset. Along these lines, a traditional method consists in assigning current employees to a tiger team of multidisciplinary experts and challengers, working full-time for a specific period on a breakthrough technological innovation. This method enables production of a concrete minimum viable product in a comparatively short time as employees often work unrestrained from other business or management constraints; its drawbacks are cost intensiveness and the risk of missing real market and user needs, as well as missing corporate alignment as the team works in isolation.
Another method, still along the aforementioned lines, allows any employee to submit ideas and eventually work on them in parallel to their tasks. Ideas are often made internally public, reviewed by a diversified management panel, and follow a development and maturation process until eventually becoming a product line. This method multiplies the chance of finding meaningful breakthrough ideas, empowers employees, and is less cost intensive. Its drawbacks are shifting risks to the employees, who have to accommodate parallel works that often do not adjust to each other, reducing the rate and speed of projects reaching maturation, potentially leading to employee frustration.
Open innovation
Faced with constraints of the same magnitude as described in the External Environment section, a large number of companies within and beyond aerospace proceeded to unbundle their business models and identify blocks better supported by external players with more agility and different exposure, as detailed by Osterwalder. 3 This led to a series of open innovation models. In the space domain, a simple example is provided by the MDA company, which developed a robotic arm for the International Space Station and was interested in spin-off and diversification. Collaborating with experts from the medical community, a telemedicine application was derived. 4
The most popular open innovation method used by companies is, however, the corporate accelerator. Typically, a program is set up through which externals compete to achieve projects on markets adjacent to the company, being often coached and funded. Corporate accelerators are typical assets of tech companies such as Google and Microsoft, but have recently convinced diverse industries such as automotive, airlines, tourism, and even the United Nations. A variation on this model is Bayer Pharmaceutical's CoLaborator, which hosts and technically supports start-ups without equity share, therefore providing a strong incentive. Bayer treats the start-ups as independent companies to which it becomes a preferred supplier.
The internet also enables testing of variations on open innovation. A platform such as InnoCentive allows experts to offer solutions to companies' preframed issues, including new product design. Such platforms are widely used by companies such as Procter & Gamble and Nestlé. 3 Another variation is crowdfunding, which has been used, for instance, by the space company Planetary Resources. A mass market audience supported R&D expenses for a space-based telescope, driven by a simple attractive incentive to receive a portrait picture from space. 4
Open innovation encourages value disruption as the idea that owners are strangers to the business and bring a new perspective; it enables ideas to be quickly tested and implemented on the market; allows companies to rebrand themselves more easily when addressing new markets (e.g., an automotive company passing as a tech company thanks to collaborative activities with an IT crowd), as highlighted by Shapiro 5 ; and can potentially bring huge benefits in case of success. Its drawbacks are high risks due to the noncore expertise of idea owners and the disruptive nature of the ideas; high implementation and management efforts; and brand exposure risks. Involving the right external parties at the right time with the right method is a delicate, but key, balance to achieve. 2
Considering evolutions in the external environment, internal environment constraints, and innovation best practices, as well as local means available, we developed an integrated and novel approach to innovation platforms, successfully pilot-tested out of a base site in Bremen, Germany. Its assets are the creation of symbiotic on-site and off-site spaces and the combination of space and aerospace competencies. Their characteristics are detailed in the sections below.
Symbiotic Spaces
An Internal On Space for Incremental Innovation
Rationale
Incremental innovation forms the basis of what maintains a company's competitiveness. We consider that internal employees and experts are the best suited to identify improvements and push boundaries of current products and technologies, through experience, through requirements imposed by new projects, knowledge of customer needs evolution, or sparked by awareness of the industry and general advances in technology. Engaged employees often burst with ideas, but yet lack the tools, knowledge, and network to try and test them. We have therefore created an internal space, available to all employees, with three main missions: offer a fully outfitted facility to rapid prototype projects; build up capacity and transfer knowledge; and support and advertise promising projects internally.
Implementation
The facility comprises a multifunctional social workshop area and adjacent laboratories. The social workshop area is modular and integrates the following: a casual lounge-like zone where users meet and discuss ideas, with sporadic inspirational media and prototypes of past flagship projects; a projects area, featuring industrial design, where teams build prototypes in an open environment, next to each other, outfitted with light electrical equipment and accessories; a 3D printing zone with a range of different printers for specific or generic applications, continuously working not only due to the high demand but also to inspire tentative users who often are not exposed to such practices in their daily duties; a virtual reality theater where models can be worked on in an immersive environment; a pitching stage to present projects; and the social workshop area that can be split into individual rooms for meetings and workshops or set as one large room for events. The adjacent laboratories feature a mechanical workshop with heavy machinery and test equipment and a fully equipped electronics design workshop with benches and a wide range of components.
The main focus of this internal space is on hardware, development tools, and processes. To multiply the potential of utilization and applications, technical support is always available, first provided by a space manager with general tools understanding, and then by technicians and experts depending on the application's depth. This enables cutting the first barrier to employee-driven innovation: having an idea, but not knowing how to realize it. Users can either be trained or task specialists to design their project. Either way, removal of the technical barrier accelerates cycles of ideas, can build up competence, and imprints a maker mindset on employees, who can test bold ideas in an environment where risk is removed and where failure has no consequence.
To enable this environment and to move from prototype to product, funding schemes and network support are provided. The space has a running budget and a project budget. The running budget covers basic support and workshops, as well as 3D printing tasks (which are less cost intensive, yet in very high demand as they play an enabler role to get a project approved to the next phase). The project budget covers the advanced design of strategic projects, as defined and quantified by a range of internal parameters. Other activities are provided as paying services to an internal department, such as the advanced design of nonstrategic projects or of projects with higher budget requirements than that available. The space benefits from an extensive network and entry points to product development: projects can be presented to key relevant players at various hierarchical levels, relevant experts, and other employees who may support or find further applications; successful projects may enter development processes that usually apply to core business initiatives.
An External Off Space for Disruptive Innovation
Rationale
Disruptive innovation, when well implemented, is what propels a company to market leadership and temporarily clears competition, yet it remains a very challenging task for large organizations. Disruption typically occurs at the intersection of disciplines, through clean sheet reconfiguration of business model elements, or through investigative research activities. Despite wishful efforts, it is difficult for experienced personnel in highly technical and rather niche fields such as space and aeronautics to correctly comprehend other domains and think in a different perspective as the industry often favors expertise. Less experienced personnel may fair better at this exercise, but often do not carry the weight to push forward ideas to the hierarchy. Business model reconfiguration implies drastic changes in an organization, which affect structures that took years for management to establish, and impacts manpower and human resource reallocation that hit union legislations and employee morale. Research activities may lead to breakthroughs, but the return on investment is inherently hard to plan, limiting their attractiveness for profit-driven organizations.
In light of the external environment changes described in the External Environment section, we therefore consider that disruption is best generated externally. To harness it, we created an external innovation space with three main missions: gather individuals from noncore business backgrounds to develop core or adjacent business solutions; benefit from end user perspective on internal solutions; and import the disruptive methods used into the company through employee exposure.
Implementation
A casual space is set up in the city center that is easily accessible for everyone. Teams of enthusiasts gather, with backgrounds in various engineering disciplines, architecture, design, tourism, business, and politics. The main incentive is provided by the brand: the opportunity to work with an industry leader on futuristic concepts and potentially make them happen or find opportunities around the company. Engineers provide the necessary technical effort, bringing methods from their field. Architects provide innovative rapid prototyping methods and a concrete end usability perspective. Designers complement the usability. Tourism experts provide adjacent business models. Political experts provide societal acceptance impact and legislation perspectives necessary for our products. This range of skills is hardly found in space and aeronautical companies, yet they are a necessary complementation to internal engineering to provide best-fit products.
The teams followed a loose program aligned with company strategic objectives. A series of lectures took place: inspiring introduction to our industry with focus on its societal impact, its place in the world, and its promising future; changes in the industry and societal environments; place of our company in the landscape and challenges to address; focus on specific topics of short- to mid-term value where external competence and public opinion can have a strong impact; space engineering basics; business model and value proposition generation; project management basics; the NewSpace movement; and pitching techniques. The teams were initially left free to define topics along the provided program guidelines, finding like-minded members coming from different disciplines. We then channeled their works so that the outcome would provide concrete value to the company and to society, as well as realistic chances of development for the teams. We focused their efforts so as to maximize the contribution of noncore business expertise, in-sourcing the required work pertaining to purely space and aeronautics.
We purposely involved internal employees of any rank and of various Airbus sites across Europe in the process. Technical experts supported the feasibility and design efforts. Managers followed the development to identify new value creation for the company. Engineers eager to broaden their scope of competencies attended sessions. Most importantly, all employees involved have been exposed to new thinking, to challenges and opportunities of other fields, to lean and entrepreneurial methods and design techniques, and last, but not least, earned a morale boost from the glorious aura that our industry has in the public, which we tend to forget. Our aim is for these employees to bring this disruptive thinking inside the company, to question established processes, technologies used, and business models, and start quickly iterating new solutions as performed in the external space.
External teams were also exposed to solutions developed internally. Society is ultimately the end user of space and aeronautical products; public interest has a significant lever on governmental space spending and on airlines' needs. To design best-fit solutions, we want to gather public opinion and, if applicable, iterate design or business positioning accordingly. Another aim is to find potential adjacent markets. External innovation space users can identify bridges to needs in their own fields that we could not have envisaged, unlocking business opportunities.
Last, to maximize the generation of disruptive concepts of company and societal interest, to identify adjacent markets, and to grow our brand, we accepted exchange requests from the local entrepreneurial scene as well as local heavy industries (energy and automotive). A strong potential is envisaged in these exchanges; however, we focused on building our platforms first and aim to grow partnerships in a later phase.
A Symbiotic Relationship as Key Success Factor
We have presented the creation of two innovation spaces. A version of each of them has been independently tried to some degree by various organizations. Internal idea prototyping laboratories have been set up. External accelerators have been set up. However, we believe that to reap real returns on these relatively risky investments, both of them need to exist, be designed in a complementary manner, and be operated in a symbiotic manner.
Solutions developed in an internal space face a subjectivity issue. They may appear optimal for the engineer, but void of interest and too complex for the taxpayer, and unusable or not fulfilling actual needs for an end user. The external space offers the capability to probe public perspective, resulting in a more fulfilling, useable sellable product. The other risk of subjectivity is to focus on what the company believes are the most relevant technologies for our business, often building up on past successes and established processes. Companies are always at risk of overlooking the rise of external disruptive technologies, of underestimating consumer tech, and simply not being aware of best practices in other industries. The external space offers direct contact with persons who are not only representing their field, bringing with them new methods, but also who are creative and open-minded enough to know of high-value emerging technologies. Another issue of internal solutions is their inherent hardly escapable exposure to corporate processes, designed for maximized return on investment, therefore imposing a risk-free culture. Projects of a too disruptive nature are then better outsourced to an external space with higher tolerance to experimentation and potential failure.
Solutions developed in an external space have two main risks: being just concepts with no industrial means to back them and being out of touch with the company interests. With a very enthusiastic audience given few constraints, it is easy for concepts to reach the domains of science fiction. To move from idea to concrete project, teams need support in three areas.
First, technical demonstration to validate the system's feasibility and iterate toward a minimum viable product is required. The equipment required can hardly be made available in an external space due to its fixed, operational, and maintenance costs, including the need for a qualified professional to operate it. The internal space serves this purpose. When reaching sufficient maturity level, external teams can access it to prototype their concepts.
Then, the feasibility and value need to be assessed and validated by relevant experts. Not all of them have the possibility to participate in the external space. The internal space acts as a hub, where technical experts can be contacted and met to confront the design, and business professionals can advise on the best applications and relevant contacts in the company's network.
Last, no projects can be pursued without funding. Providing the external space with an investment budget was considered too risky for its first implementation, the target being primarily to generate ideas. The internal space offers a bridge to internal funding streams for external projects. Depending on their maturity, the full range of streams can be made available, from prototyping support to innovation development support, research and technology funds, individual business lines, and spin-off possibility. A team may as well decide to create a start-up independently, with Airbus having privileged access to its product and deciding on investment setup on a case-by-case basis.
Each space has unique and complementary assets that create a virtuous loop of innovation. These symbiotic platforms tend toward a model where society designs what it needs using the capital-heavy resources and skills of an established industry whose role tends more to maintain and grow technical competence to achieve the desired societal objective.
Cross-Industry Sponsor
Rationale
Typically, large aerospace corporations house these two branches with intent of portfolio diversification. They tend to operate in silos, which is reasonably justified by business purposes. Their customers, markets, and end users are different in nature. Their scales of production are two extremes, which impact the workforce setup, work package allocation, and research and development activities of these branches. Synergies are mostly created at administration and information technology levels. Transfer of competencies and development activities are occasionally mutualized on specific topics. Yet, we believe a lot more can be harmonized, especially regarding innovation.
From a technical perspective, the systems engineering and hardware development activities tend to converge as airplane design sophisticates and space design aims to become leaner. The advances in consumer technology 1 (which now tends to innovate faster than space and aeronautical technology) similarly tend to populate each industry's assets (e.g., simple miniaturized chips, wireless connections, mobile interfaces, and cloud infrastructure). Efficiencies developed on airlines' production chains can benefit space hardware production, as is the case in the OneWeb satellite constellation industrial setup. Conversely, unique technology solutions developed for space applications in the light of extreme environmental requirements can find competitiveness-boosting applications in aeronautics.
From a business perspective, evolving market needs in the transportation business, combined with opening and commercialization of the low Earth orbit frontier, call for hybrid solutions. The consumer-oriented business practices of aeronautics can clash with governmental and societal business practices of space to produce new business models.
We agreed that joining the two industries for symbiotic innovation spaces would spark and accelerate the aforementioned opportunities. The joint technical advances are facilitated by the common internal space that not only provides a discussion ground but also testing capabilities. The new business model opportunities are facilitated by the external space, whose users are confronted by both branches in an equal manner and can easily identify opportunities as well as no-gos, not only between each industry but also in light of each user's field of expertise and exposure to consumer and societal advances.
Implementation
The main challenge for successfully implementing this joint capability is to establish a fair governance system and processes that respect each party's interest, including external stakeholders. Each space is sponsored by three entities: the space division, the aeronautics division, and the corporate-level division. The space and aeronautics divisions cover an equal part, each larger than the corporate division. The space and aeronautics divisions' contributions are each split between local site sponsor and headquarters, innovation, research, and development sponsor. The sponsoring provided by each entity combines financial funds for capital expenditures, operational expenditures, project support, and manpower allocation. Each stakeholder is represented as part of governance boards. A local board comprises the operational staff, the users, customer representatives, and the sponsoring and management representatives. Its main role is to monitor, adjust, and grow the operations. An off board comprises the local board and off-site sponsor from management level. Its main role is to drive the strategy, monitor returns, support cooperation, and transfer with other company entities.
Such a configuration provides fair representation to each major stakeholder. It aims to prevent conflicts of interest and dominance as the key players are equally represented. It lets the local organization drive the operations and take the risks while ensuring connection with corporate entities that benefit not only both the company through strategic alignment and transfer but also the local platforms as management recognition preserves their integrity and edge. The local management is not only technical but also involves a carefully crafted representation of stakeholders in various disciplines and hierarchical functions. This harmony supports the perennity of the platforms and avoids it being a rogue exercise in disruption that would harm the project's development.
For practical reasons, the day-to-day lead of each space has been delegated to a specific entity: space for the external space (closer to disruption, availability of the right personnel) and aeronautics for the internal one (higher demand in internal space services offering, availability of the right personnel). This also helps to accelerate operations when starting each venture, preventing administrative constraints. A common budget covers maintenance and operations as both entities benefit from it. The decision to allocate funding to internal projects follows the same process, with a list of weighted criteria; however, ultimately each entity has its own funding reserved allocation and decides how many projects to fund and up to which level. The number of external projects has, however, been split equally between both branches to ensure equal disruption chances and represent the flagship cross-industry initiative.
This model of combining space and aeronautical competencies in innovation platforms is the most intuitive cross-industry initiative to implement for a large aerospace corporation. However, we do believe in equally significant benefits when joining forces with other industries. The local industrial landscape allows building models with the energy and automotive industries, with whom several exchanges already occurred. One promising area of mutual interest is the development of smart city solutions, being at the crossroads of all these industries' competencies. Other industries of interest are information technologies, for big data, machine learning, artificial intelligence, mobile solutions, internet of things; and health, for telemedicine, physiology research, and user experience.
Results
This model of symbiotic innovation platforms and cross-industry sponsor has been rolled out in its first version by Airbus Defence and Space and Airbus Operations in Bremen, Germany, from February 2016.
Internal Space
The internal space opened doors with a first set of equipment, which is gradually expanding with predefined timed contributions from stakeholders. It became an immediate success for prototyping, requiring upgrades in the infrastructure. The word spread quickly within the site, and we found that many departments actually had a latent need for prototyping. Downstream engineering and production units needed to visualize parts to test. Upstream engineering, design, and innovation units needed first-hand prototypes to help secure further development of their projects. Workshops also take place regularly, providing teams with a different creative environment that stimulates innovative thinking. The merging of space and aeronautical activities within one place asks for a learning curve for employees who initially worked following the known guidelines of their branch. A gradual change has been observed, with project teams from each branch working side by side in the workshop and necessarily interacting. Cross-industry collaboration started on robotics topics. Space engineers working on a new technology found (when interacting with aeronautical engineers within the space) that their concept would be of high added value for airplane design, resulting in patent submissions. Benefits are bound to multiply as people familiarize themselves with the innovation space methodology.
External Space
The external space opened as a pilot program run in a dedicated room at the Bremen University of Applied Sciences (Hochschule Bremen), which has a campus directly in the streets of the city center, accessible to all. Participation was driven by academics. The major incentives were the opportunity to work with a large aerospace corporation on futuristic concepts and full inclusion in coursework for students. Following introductory sessions, alignment, and channeling, four projects were selected: two for space and two for aeronautics. The teams were purposely set up to be multidisciplinary and international. Six disciplines and nine countries were represented. They were supported by company experts from various sites, both locally and remotely. Two projects found direct inclusion in ongoing internal programs, providing added value that could not have been generated easily internally; one of which might continue as a semi-independent venture. The other two projects covered disruptive concepts of high added value, but considered too early for market entry given the current environmental conditions; therefore, they were kept by the relevant teams for more ripe times. One has to note that this is common practice in the industry, with several successful internal projects also having been conceived before market maturation time. External team members were offered career opportunities within the company, proving that this platform is also an interesting hiring tool to identify innovative minds.
Symbiosis and Cross-Industry Approach
The positive impacts of the symbiotic and cross-industry approach can be first felt in the innovative topics developed in the platforms: future airport and aircraft design; societal drivers to enable inclusion of high technology in aerospace projects; new business models for stratospheric platforms, merging scientific and consumer interests; and new architecture of commercial exploration missions. These topics, concerned with the future of transportation, communication, exploration, living, and working, are at the crossroads of space and aeronautics, directly allowed and facilitated by the platforms. External projects were prototyped in the internal space where they benefited not only from expert advice but also exposure. This exposure in turn inspired internal projects. Conversely, internal initiatives benefited from exposure to external team members, probing first response of the environment and, in some cases, driving parts of project strategic planning.
Example Projects
On the aerospace side, the Plug n Fly project aimed to devise an integrated airport + aircraft design, allowing a seamless, hassle-free passenger experience, while reducing aircraft turnaround time by close to 30%. Based on a system of passenger pods zooming through automated airport procedures and swiftly on- and off-loading from the aircraft, it also allows the airport to generate more revenues from actual flights and depend less on shop leases. Conceptual design and a small-scale functioning prototype were performed by a team of engineers and architects, supported by the Bremen University of Applied Sciences, the Bremen Airport, and a local architecture agency, in the February–August 2016 time frame. Models were publicly exposed for a dedicated exhibit in the Bremen Town Hall. The team has exchanged with the Bremen Airport to define a first real-scale prototype. The project has been embedded in the Future by Airbus program. 6
On the space side, both internal and external spaces have supported an initially internal project providing a commercial platform to access the International Space Station (ISS). A set of modular components tailored to both space interface requirements and standard ground user needs can be ordered and rented by any public or private user to perform tailored projects on the ISS while remote controlling them from their own location on ground, bypassing control centers. A full-scale prototype was built in the internal space, benefiting from its very quick speed of execution, and supporting customers' acquisition efforts. The project was presented in the external space to identify both issues and opportunities from a new market perspective. The project is led by an internal engineering team and has been supported by the external space community at large. It is, at the time of writing, an ongoing project and is referenced in several company initiatives. 7
Conclusion
The aforementioned benefits are positively welcome given the experimental nature of the first version of these platforms with promising potential as they develop and as users accommodate to the methodology. Internally, our model allowed the generation of concrete innovation with visible returns; the harmonization of different company branches around innovation; and initiated cultural changes, promoting lean disruptive, yet integrated, thinking for employees. This has been recognized by an Airbus Award for Excellence, rewarding top company projects yearly and promoting them across sites and at management levels. Externally, the initiative quickly sparked interest from the local industrial, academic, and entrepreneurial communities, offering promising innovation opportunities.
Further work will cover development and duplication of the concept. The internal space will be further outfitted to fit growing and changing user needs. Dual workshops will be arranged to promote cross-industrial innovation as well as external projects and perspectives. A new building will be erected to house the external space, along with other innovative initiatives from our local academic partner. Collaboration with the local industrial and entrepreneurial communities will grow to become an integrated part of the program. More internal employees will be involved in external projects and showcasing activities. Last, similar innovation platforms will open across various Airbus sites, adapting our model to local innovation practices and to the local external environment.
Several recommendations for innovation-minded organizations can be drawn from our successful concept implementation. First, realizing the impact that fast-evolving consumer technology (and adjacent industries technologies) can have on established practices, perform adequate scouting, assessment, and channeling to make them available to projects. Then, provide departments and employees a freedom room, less constrained by administration and more risk tolerant, to express needs driven by daily practices, but that can hardly be implemented in the course of ongoing projects, together with the capability to test solutions, get perspective, support, and multiplication effects of networking. Then, understand that other noncore business disciplines have access to other markets, methods, tools, and business models that can drive disruption, and also follow a process of optimization. Engage with these players, outsource risks, and channel them to create value in conjunction with corporate interests and strategy. Such initiatives offer excellent testing grounds to bridge different internal divisions, allowing harmonization and joint growth. Finally, understand that innovation can be engineered to some level. A balanced symbiosis between internal and external innovation enables to ensure relevance and to accelerate value disruption.
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank Guido Schwartz (Airbus Defence and Space) for having enabled the realization of these platforms and Daniel Reckzeh and Hendrick Friedel (Airbus Operations) for their support.
Author Disclosure Statement
No competing financial interests exist.