While Airbus and other aircraft manufacturers have been taking a leading role in deploying radio frequency identification for the management of airplane parts, one aviation company has leveraged Airbus' knowledge to create its own solution. Abu Dhabi Aircraft Technologies (ADAT) - a third-party provider of maintenance, repair and overhaul services - has deployed an RFID system at its facility to manage work-in-progress for the parts it services for its customers, which include Airbus and other aircraft manufacturers. The system has helped ADAT reduce turnaround times, and has provided information that the firm can employ to further improve efficiency.

Over the past several decades, processes to design and build cars, airplanes and products used in various other industries have typically followed a linear, sequential path. This process typically started with product research, ideation and concept development, followed by design and development, prototype and validation, leading to production, launch, operation and, eventually, product retirement.

There's a custom in Washington that U.S. defense contractors don't talk trash about their competitors, at least not in public. After fiercely competing for multibillion-dollar Pentagon contracts, the winner often placates the loser with a piece of the action. When Lockheed Martin was awarded the contract to build the F-22 fighter jet, it hired Northrop Grumman to build the plane's radar. Boeing won the contract to build the Air Force's KC-46 tanker plane and asked Northrop and Raytheon to contribute key components. Everyone ends up happy. It's how it’s always been done.

Airfreight markets in March were up 5.9 percent compared to a year ago and capacity grew 3.4 percent, according to the International Air Transport Association. While this marks a significant improvement in volumes compared to March 2013, much of the growth took place in the final quarter of 2013 (over and above the usual year-end volume growth). Since the beginning of the year, air cargo volumes have been basically flat. This plateau in volumes is consistent with the recent pause in improvements to business confidence and world trade.

Challenge: A specialized industrial manufacturing company was looking to hire a new transportation manager to better manage multiple transportation providers, each with their own unique billing processes.

Project-based operations that improved on-time and on-budget performance by 10 percent or more were nine times as likely to also improve dramatically on key financial metrics such as net profit margin and cost of compliance. Nearly every project-based manufacturer feels it is important for their company to improve on end-to-end project management, but less than half of the companies in project manufacturing, aerospace and defense (A&D) and maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) sectors with project-based operations make wide use of any recognized category of commercial software system. This includes limited use of enterprise resources planning and quality management (QMS) systems.