ATI Boeing Accelerator Spotlight — GKN Aerospace
In this interview, we learn more about Paul Perera, VP Technology of GKN Aerospace, and why he believes in disruption and diversity coming from small agile companies and startups.
Paul believes that automation, innovation and sustainability are crucial to the future of aerospace. Find out about his experience with the ATI Boeing Accelerator, and why GKN Aerospace is determined to play a key role in the development towards greener aviation.
Tell me about yourself and GKN Aerospace.
Hi! I’m Paul Perera and I am the VP for technology at GKN Aerospace. We are co-sponsors of the ATI Boeing Accelerator with Boeing and we’re really pleased to be part of this initiative. GKN Aerospace is a company focused on delivering value to our customers in aerospace. Whether we are working with the major primes in engines or in airframe or across the defence arena, we look to bring value to the products that we are making.
We have a large business across 50 sites across the UK, the US, the Netherlands, Sweden and then internationally with fabrication and manufacturing in China and India, and growing in other areas across the globe. We’re in many sectors of the market.
Tell me about GKN Aerospace and why you decided to sponsor this initiative?
We’re sponsoring the programme because we really believe in disruption coming from small agile companies and startups. We also believe in two things: that the future has to have more sustainable aviation and that it is going to be more digital manufacturing that carries us through what are fairly interesting times.
Right now, and with Boeing, we’ve been seeing the adoption of digital manufacturing — and Industry 4.0 as we may call it — as being an essential part of how we’re going to challenge ourselves to be different in the future. We are sponsoring the ATI Boeing Accelerator to make sure that we bring that difference in diversity into our company. We believe in the principles of open innovation and creating value in collaboration so that’s why we’re sponsoring this and why I personally have taken a lot of interest in working with the startups.
All nine have been working with us from the beginning to now, from the selection process to the completion of their proof of concept. I’ve had a very big part to play and with my team we have seen some really exciting developments in technology and advancement acceleration.
In fact, in one particular example, we’ve moved as quickly as over a weekend. With Anomalous — the team who are looking at the use of artificial intelligence in quality inspection — we used the Ventilator Challenge to really push that proof of concept even faster than they could have imagined. So we’re really excited by challenging ourselves in this industry to do things at that pace.
What’s the biggest challenge the aerospace industry is currently facing and what’s the biggest threat to established businesses like GKN Aerospace?
The biggest threat to established businesses like ours will be that we don’t take on that learning and innovation quickly enough.
So one of the great things by working with startups and disrupting our own thinking is that they bring new guidance as to how quickly things can be done and a new passion for the ways of working and collaboration. We have to be ready to adapt that ourselves internally by showing our teams that there are different ways to work. We’re beginning to create that culture internally and also exercise our more open minds and open innovation approach. That’s really important to establish the next generation of technologies.
Of course, you just have look over the last few weeks with the fantastic launch of men into space on a space vehicle, which nine years ago was just a dream. Providing a launcher that can take people into space, with launchers that can cut the cost of a kilo of assets going into space by 90 percent down to just 10 percent of what the NASA space shuttle programme could deliver with SpaceX being right in the heart of that disruption. We can see that this could happen in aerospace.
We’ve been looking at the ways in which the world has changed, and what the world might look like beyond this COVID-19 crisis. We think that the startups that have adopted a proof of concept with both GKN Aerospace and Boeing and the sponsorship of the ATI team and the accelerator team, who have been amazing, will be the first to recover and grow faster than ever in these troubled times.
Aerospace is one of those areas that will come back. It is going to be a little bit slower than everyone would like but the challenge in aerospace is going to be sustainable aviation going forward. We need to look at the way in which the world will look without the contrails, without the greenhouse gases.
The innovation that we need around this will be only coming from companies that have the ability to deliver technology and advance that really quickly into the world that we’re now going to step into. Some people talk about the new normal, I talk about the way that we are going to have to be. It is just the future. It is going to be now rather than later. Sustainable aviation was pushed out a little bit in people’s minds. Maybe to 2030 and beyond but I believe it’s going to come faster.
Some people talk about the new normal, I talk about the way that we are going to have to be. It is just the future. It is going to be now rather than later.
What piece of advice would you give to founders who want to work with GKN Aerospace?
Don’t give up on your ambition, have a sense of purpose, really understand how that purpose aligns with that and the goals of your sponsors. GKN is being clear with some of our startups that there’s a really clear alignment and we want to push faster and further. Those that have adopted the feedback, both good and bad, have done better than those that have not. I would listen, take that understanding forward, prove your concept, demonstrate the value, and we’ll be back for more and that’s for sure.
Don’t give up on your ambition, have a sense of purpose, really understand how that purpose aligns with that and the goals of your sponsors.
What are the benefits for GKN Aerospace as sponsor of the ATI Boeing Accelerator?
We’ve just had a great an intimate relationship with both the ATI and Boeing and obviously with all of the startups, to get to really understand the landscape, the challenges, the competitors. If you’re a company that hasn’t yet invested in a startup accelerator, then you’ve missed out already on this one, but there’s another chance coming up.
So I would be recommending you to take a step in the direction of speaking to the ATI and working with us in the future. We’ve got our next cohort beginning to shape and it’s really exciting times.
Can you tell us more about your involvement in the UK’s COVID-19 response?
Our involvement so far is that we’ve been a key part in setting up the ventilator consortium known as the Ventilator Challenge UK. We’ve been the founders of a startup culture in our own world. With the aerospace companies coming together to demonstrate that you can actually bring this digital architecture, digitally engineering thinking into producing new products and rapidly and scaling them up. Our involvement in this process has been guided actually by the work that we’ve done with startups.
Our involvement in this process has been guided actually by the work that we’ve done with startups.
What is your advice for founders in this uncertain time?
Stick at it, know your business, know your ethics, make your sense of purpose really clear and keep working with us. We need your help and I look forward as part of GKN Aerospace to continue the great relationship we have with the ATI Boeing Accelerator and thank you for all your efforts.
GKN Aerospace overview
- 17,000 employees
- £3.85bn sales in 2019; split between 70% commercial and 30% defence
- 48 manufacturing locations in 14 countries.
3 core markets:
- Civil Airframes
- Engine Systems
- Defence.
For more information about the programme, please contact the ATI Boeing Accelerator team:
Gabi Matic — gm@atiboeingaccelerator.com | linkedin.com/in/gabrielamatic
Wil Benton — wb@atiboeingaccelerator.com | linkedin.com/in/fatkidonfire
Ksenia Kurileva — kk@atiboeingaccelerator.com | linkedin.com/in/kseniakurileva
