Aerospace Industry

The Aerospace and Defence (A&D) market in India is estimated to reach around $70 billion by 2030 as the momentum is expected to further pick up with improving infrastructure and government thrust. The growth of airlines and passenger traffic in India has been highly rapid in the past five years at over 15 percent per year and this has increased from around 70 to 200 million passengers in the past 10 years in domestic and international air travel. Further, the number of flyers from India for international travel is also estimated to be around 100 million last year which indicates high demand for airline services and seats.

From a single carrier, viz. Air India /Indian Airlines until the 1990s, today there are strong private airlines like Indigo, Jet, Go Air, Vistara etc. which are competing for a share in the rapidly growing market pie. This is giving rise to unprecedented demand for new airplanes with all airlines placing large orders for airplanes over the next five years to meet the growing needs of the domestic and international Indian traveler. This growth trend is expected to continue strongly in future years as the economy develops and fuels the demand from a growing middle class for air travel for tourism, business, other visits etc.

There is large growth expected for smaller aircraft, business jets, helicopters etc. for regional connectivity and faster movement as the demand from business and other travelers increases with economic growth.

Component manufacturing

This makes a strong case for global OEMs and their suppliers to examine India as a destination to play a vital role in the global supply chain for aerospace components and parts. There could be several advantages to gain from the low costs in India along with the technical and engineering expertise / skills available for high-precision and high-quality components. What has been witnessed in the automobile components and auto (small car) industry can very well be replicated for aerospace and related components and services.

Defence indigenisation has remained the inner calling of a nation, which has the third largest Army, is the eighth largest military spender and has emerged as the largest importer of weapon systems and platforms in the world. As India inches to achieve its rightful strategic autonomy, it needs to do much more in planting the seeds for a commercially viable and technologically robust indigenous defense industrial base.

The modernisation/reforms of defence forces is a continuous process based on threat perception, operational challenges and technological changes to keep the Armed Forces in a state of readiness to meet the entire spectrum of security challenges. In order to reduce arms dependency and promote indigenous manufacturing of defence equipment, a comprehensive revamped ‘Make and Innovation’ procedure has been introduced in DAP-20 to facilitate indigenous design and development of defence equipment by private participation both with Government funding and industry funding.

Progressive Promulgation of Positive Indigenisation Lists: A series of Positive Indigenisation Lists of defence weapons & equipment which would not be imported from abroad have been promulgated.  1^st Positive Indigenisation List comprising of 101 items was promulgated in August 2020, 2^nd Positive Indigenisation List comprising of 108 items was promulgated in May 2021 & 3^rd Indigenisation List comprising of 101 items was promulgated in April 2022. 

The impact of ‘Aatmanirbhar Bharat’ in defence manufacturing is as given below:

• In line with the budget announcement for F.Y. 2022-2023 of allocating 25% of the Defence R&D budget for industry led R&D, 18 major platforms have been approved by the Government for industry led Design & Development under Make I, Make II, SPV Model and iDEX routes.
• An innovation ecosystem for Defence titled Innovations for Defence Excellence (iDEX) has been launched in April, 2018 to foster innovation and technology development in Defence and Aerospace by engaging Industries including MSMEs, Start-ups, Individual Innovators, R&D institutes and Academia, and provide them grants/funding and other support to carry out R&D which has potential for future adoption for Indian defence and aerospace needs. So far, 125 problems have been opened, 136 start-ups have been engaged, 102 contracts have been signed.
• iDEX route of procurement have been simplified and timelines have been compressed from 2 years earlier to just 5 months by reforming the trial process.
• The Government has approved a Scheme with an outlay of Rs 498.78 crore (2021-22 to 2025-26) to push innovation and support start-ups in Defence & Aerospace sector. This will enable more than 300 start-ups to participate in the new design and development projects and also support 20 partner incubators.
• As part of the efforts to achieve self-reliance in Defence manufacturing and minimize imports by the DPSUs, a positive indigenisation list has been notified by the Department. The list contains 2,500 imported items which have already been indigenized and 351 high value imported items which will be indigenised in next 3 years.  Out of 351 items, 147 items have already been indigenised.
• Another list of DPSUs for indigenization of 107 Line Replaceable Units (LRUs)/Sub-systems of high value platform was notified on 28.03.2022. As on date, 4 LRUs have been indigenised; 5 LRUs are at trial stage and 31 LRUs are at design and development stage.
• An indigenisation portal namely SRIJAN has been launched in August, 2020 for DPSUs/OFB/Services with an industry interface to provide development support to MSMEs/Start-ups/Industry for import substitution. So far, more than 21,000 defence items, which were earlier imported, have been displayed on the portal. 388 private vendors have expressed interest in indigenising more than 4,700 items and so far 410 items have been indigenised.
• Separate procedure for ‘Make-II’ category (Industry funded) has been notified to encourage indigenous development and manufacture of defence equipment. Number of industry friendly provisions such as relaxation of eligibility criterion, minimal documentation, provision for considering proposals suggested by industry/individual etc. has been introduced in this procedure. So far, 72 projects relating to Army, Navy & Air Force, have been accorded ‘Approval in Principle’. 38 Acceptance of Necessity (AONs), 05 prototypes developed and 2 procurement contracts have been signed by the Services.
• Further, Make-II route of procurement have been simplified and timelines have been compressed from 2 years earlier to just 5 months by reforming the trial process.
• As part of ease of doing business, the export procedure has been simplified and made completely online. This has resulted in an exponential increase in the number of Export Authorizations issued.
• Defence Testing Infrastructure Scheme (DTIS) has been formulated for creating 6 to 8 Greenfield Defence Testing Infrastructures in the country and attain ‘Aatmanirbharta’ in the Defence Testing Infrastructure for the domestic industry.
• As part of the ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’, the Government organised an event ‘AiDef’ on 11th July, 2022 where for the first time 75 defence specific Artificial Intelligence (AI) products were launched by Raksha Mantri. During the event, three AI products of DPSUs were also launched for the market.

We work in a collaborative engineering mode to assist defense R&D from conceptual design to delivery of design / manufacturing drawings. We interface to get certification from appropriate agencies.

The growth in all the areas mentioned would also lead to increasing need for MRO and related services in India, and many global majors like Boeing have been looking at the opportunities available for the same. All these have substantial potential to generate employment opportunities for technicians and engineers to fulfill the need for manufacturing and services for aerospace industry. The MRO market for repairs and maintenance services for aircraft is itself expected to touch $4 billion by 2025. In addition, there is scope for design and engineering services related to components and assemblies to be given as services to OEMs. There would also be requirement of leasing, financial, ground support and other types of services with growth of the aerospace sector.

We use a variety of computer simulation technologies, we develop computer models of products/ systems/ processes, adopting virtual product development, virtual prototyping, virtual testing methodologies.

Fatigue, fracture, creep, analysis (prediction fatigue hot spots- the regions where fatigue damage initiates, number of cycles for failure, Probability of failure due to variations in loading/ material properties/ operational conditions)