Investment Success Story
Boeing looks to Australia for innovation breakthroughs
October 2012
Australia is the place where the world’s largest aerospace company, Boeing, has made its largest investment outside the United States.
During the past 10 years Boeing has transferred an estimated $100 million in technological know-how to Australia and invested more than $500 million in plant, equipment, training and research laboratories.
Boeing Australia has seven wholly-owned subsidiaries.
Image Courtesy of Boeing
There are many reasons why Boeing has chosen Australia: among them, Australia’s rigorous protection of intellectual property, the quality of Australian university graduates, the general business environment, and Australia’s strong, resilient economy.
On a visit to Australia late last year, Boeing’s Chief Executive, Jim McNerney, said that Australian expertise is highly regarded within Boeing, that the skills base in Australia is strong, and that Boeing’s engagement with Australia was ‘deeper and broader’ than in most other countries.
Close collaboration
For over two decades, Boeing has worked in close collaboration with Australia’s largest research organisation, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO).
With the whole world to choose from, the aerospace giant turned to CSIRO for its innovative ideas, skills, and expertise in research. And it is a partnership which is paying dividends: CSIRO was named one of Boeing’s suppliers of the year in 2010 and a joint Boeing-CSIRO project was awarded a CSIRO excellence award in 2011.
In May 2012, the two organisations announced a new five-year $25 million research program to cover innovations in space sciences, advanced materials, energy and direct manufacturing.
Ian Thomas, President of Boeing Australia & South Pacific, says that the recent agreement between Boeing and CSIRO represents the next stage in what has been an extremely successful relationship that has delivered real technological breakthroughs for the industry.
World-leading technology innovations
During their collaboration, Boeing and CSIRO have jointly invested about $110 million across a wide range of projects, including world-leading technology innovations in sustainable aviation fuels, aircraft assembly processes, fire retardants and aircraft maintenance management software.
One breakthrough has been the development of a way to make the essential maintenance of an aircraft both quicker and safer.
Repainting commercial aircraft has long been a tedious and risky job. Each coat of paint requires sanding to allow subsequent paint layers to adhere, so workers had to scour a plane’s surface for days at a time, often suspended by harnesses from above. This painstaking job was not only time-consuming, but also resulted in a large number of injuries at Boeing factories.
CSIRO looked for ways to make the task easier. The resultant technology involves applying a metal alkoxide-based surface treatment that modifies and activates an ‘aged’ paint surface and acts as a ‘chemical hook’ to fasten layers of paint together.
Over the last couple of years this new technology has been used successfully on more than 800 commercial aircraft. The result has been a job which is not only less dangerous for the workers involved but also delivers millions of dollars in cost savings.
Many projects underway
Calum Drummond, CSIRO’s Group Executive, Manufacturing, Materials and Minerals, is one of the managers who oversees the relationship with Boeing. He explains that his group can have between ten and twenty projects underway with Boeing at any one time.
He meets twice a year with his Boeing counterpart, who is based in St Louis, Missouri, while CSIRO regularly sends researchers to Boeing’s US sites to work on projects. The result, says Mr Drummond, is a close collaboration that helps match expectations quickly.
Another notable success for CSIRO and Boeing is the 2011 ‘Flight Path to Sustainable Aviation’ study, which outlines the challenges and opportunities for developing alternative aviation fuel.
CSIRO has also worked with Boeing Research & Technology, the company’s advanced technology unit, on the ‘Smart Skies Project’ which identified techniques and devices needed for unmanned aircraft and looked at developing tools that could detect micro fractures in the carbon composite fibres used in aircraft construction.
Further innovations in the works include new designs that can cut back on cables and wiring, and the development of materials that can not only sense their environment but can heal their own fractures.
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