Aerospace Xelerated: Next-Generation Workforce
Exploring the challenges, opportunities and technical requirements for the next-generation workforce
tl;dr — 🛫 Applications for Aerospace Xelerated’s fourth cohort are now open, and close 2nd October 2022. Following three successful cohorts led by Boeing and supported by industry partners, the programme will now be run in partnership with Tawazun Economic Council, the defence and security acquisitions authority of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). We’re looking for world-class startups at the seed to series A stage that are building digital services and solutions. Find out more, apply online, or book an Office Hours call.
In Cohort 4, which is focused on digital services and solutions, we are looking to support world-class startups focused on several specific sub-themes. Throughout these posts, we are illustrating what Boeing, Tawazun Economic Council and its industry partners are looking for from startups focusing on these themes.
This article covers the next-generation workforce. We’ve also written about flight and passenger journey optimisation, supply chain intelligence, and we’ll write about operational efficiency in the next blog.
A side note: our definition of aerospace revolves around the design and manufacture of aeroplanes and the peripherals around that process; rather than spacecraft or satellites. Startups with hardware-only solutions are unfortunately out of scope for this programme. We may hold future programmes with a stronger hardware focus so do stay tuned.
Decoding next-generation workforce
For this sub-theme, we are interested in digital services and solutions that can address critical challenges in industry staffing and maintaining the skills pipeline for the next-generation workforce. In addition to the challenges of operating with a complex and volatile supply chain, we as an industry must overcome another significant obstacle: finding enough skilled labour.
Jason Tepool is the program manager of Boeing Global Services’ Training & Professional Services’ ab initio programs and shared his thoughts ont the challenges the aerospace industry is facing when it comes to the workforce.
“We are up against some really big growth in air travel,” Jason says. “This is driving creation of new airlines and growth of existing airlines’ fleets, and that in turn is putting a huge demand for more pilots, technicians, cabin crew, and various aviation jobs.
On top of this, we’re hearing that companies are struggling to hire new employees. This is stemming from what appears to be less interest in aviation careers and competition from other industries that are more attractive to those searching for work. This is also impacting retention of the workforce.
Aviation careers require a significant amount of training. These skills and work ethic that come from the aviation workforce are highly sought by other industries, and companies are able to attract individuals away from our industry.
Talking to young students around the world about aviation careers, we hear that it’s too expensive and it takes too long to train for a job, up to two years to become a pilot. Many times, these students have never realized there are many other aviation careers besides being a pilot.”
What applications in the next-generation workforce sub-theme are particularly interesting?
Application #1: Increasing efficiency for training and education organisations
There are labour shortages across the aerospace industry, from pilots to cabin crews to technicians (you can learn more from Boeing’s 2022 Pilot and Technician Outlook). Coupled with the difficulties in hiring skilled talent rapidly, we are really interested in seeing solutions that can solve problems around efficient operations. This is equally applicable within MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) organisations, as well as training organisations that are providing the talent pipeline. “Many flight and technician training schools around the world are already struggling due to low staffing,” says Jason. “They need tools that help them be more efficient with the resources they have.”
Application #2: Provide robust analytics on the end-to-end training journey
For training and education, we are interested in integrated solutions that can quickly and effectively bring new hires up to speed. Being able to provide feedback and analytics on training completion, engagement and retention is also valuable.” Jason says, “They [flight and technician training schools] also need the learning tools that students and educators use to be more advanced and integrated. Many operators are using several different software systems to run their businesses. These are not connected, often don’t provide data analytics, and oftentimes are not simple to use.”
Solutions need to be seamless for operators to use
Finally, startups building solutions in this space need to keep in mind that training organisations are also facing staffing shortages. This means they won’t have the same technical resources as large organisations. “Looking in the early flight and technician training areas, rather than airlines, solutions need to be simple, integrated, and affordable,” Jason says. “Small aviation training organizations that provide a significant portion of the workforce pipeline are doing so without large staff. These operators don’t have dedicated IT resources, and often instructors are managing devices and applications used by the entire operation.”
Have you developed a digital service or solution? To apply for this cohort, head over to our website.
Learn more about Aerospace Xelerated in our FAQ or watch our Ask Us Anything webinar. You can also book an Office Hours call to discuss your queries with the programme team.
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