Advanced Planning and Scheduling for Aerospace and Defence

Aerospace and Defence Manufacturing Under Pressure

Aerospace and defence manufacturers are operating in an increasingly demanding environment. Growing order books, complex programmes, supply-chain uncertainty and shortages of specialist skills are putting production teams under pressure to deliver more—without compromising quality, traceability or customer commitments.

For senior decision-makers, the challenge is understanding whether the business has sufficient capacity to meet future demand.

For operational teams, it is about turning that demand into an achievable production schedule.

Siemens Opcenter Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) provides the visibility and control needed to create realistic production schedules, respond faster to disruption and make better use of existing capacity.

From Commercial Aircraft to Future Combat Air

Consider the production network behind an Airbus A350, A400M Atlas, Eurofighter Typhoon or F-35. Thousands of components must pass through machining, composites, fabrication, treatment, assembly, inspection and testing before they can be brought together in the final aircraft.

The same complexity exists across emerging aerospace and defence programmes, including the Tempest future combat aircraft, Protector RG Mk1 uncrewed aircraft, satellites, launch vehicles and increasingly sophisticated missile and mission systems.

A delay affecting one specialist component, material or inspection process can disrupt multiple downstream operations. For manufacturers within these supply chains, production planning is not simply about loading machines. It is about coordinating a complex network of interdependent resources, suppliers and programme milestones.

Is Your Production Plan Genuinely Achievable?

An aerospace production plan may look achievable at a high level. However, the picture can change when detailed manufacturing constraints are considered. Can the required machine, material, tooling and appropriately skilled operator all be available at the same time?

A realistic aerospace and defence schedule may need to consider:

If these constraints are planned separately, the schedule may contain production and delivery dates that cannot be achieved on the shop floor.

Limited Visibility of Future Capacity

Aerospace and defence production frequently involves long lead times and complex manufacturing routings. A single airframe, engine or mission-system component may pass through dozens of operations before it is ready for installation or final assembly. This makes it difficult to identify where capacity problems will occur several weeks or months into the future.

A production plan may appear achievable while a five-axis machining centre, specialist composite process, certified welder or inspection resource is becoming overloaded further along the schedule. When bottlenecks are identified too late, the available options are often more expensive and disruptive.

The business may need to introduce overtime, expedite materials, outsource additional work, rearrange programme priorities or delay another customer order.

Senior leaders also need confidence that increased demand and new programme commitments are supported by realistic capacity. Without detailed forward visibility, decisions about recruitment, additional shifts, capital equipment and subcontracting can be based on assumptions rather than evidence.

Reliance on Spreadsheets and Manual Scheduling

Many aerospace and defence manufacturers continue to depend on spreadsheets, planning boards and manually maintained ERP reports. These tools may work when production is stable.

However, they become increasingly difficult to manage as order volumes, product variants, manufacturing constraints and programme priorities increase. Planners can spend significant amounts of time collecting information, updating dates, moving work between resources and communicating revised priorities. When something changes, the impact on the rest of the production plan must be assessed manually. This can take hours or even days.

Is Critical Planning Knowledge Held by Too Few People?

Experienced planners often carry a detailed understanding of the factory.

They know which machines can perform particular operations, which employees hold the required approvals, which components should be grouped together and where additional time needs to be allowed.

Shortages of Skilled Labour and Specialist Resources

Aerospace and defence manufacturing depends on highly specialised capabilities. These may include experienced machinists, certified welders, composite technicians, quality inspectors, test engineers and employees approved to work on particular products or programmes. The availability of a machine does not necessarily mean an operation can begin.

The appropriately skilled person, tooling, material and supporting resources may all need to be available at the same time. When these constraints are not included in the schedule, work can be released that cannot be completed. Jobs then wait between operations, increasing work in progress and creating congestion across the factory.

Recruiting additional skilled employees can be difficult, expensive and time-consuming. The objective is therefore not simply to keep every machine busy. It is to use the right combination of machines, people and specialist resources on the right work at the right time.

Responding to Engineering Changes and Supply-Chain Disruption

Aerospace and defence production plans rarely remain unchanged. Engineering changes, revised customer priorities, quality issues, machine breakdowns, material shortages and supplier delays can all disrupt the schedule.

A change to an airframe, engine component or defence system may affect materials, tooling, manufacturing operations and inspection requirements, while delays to long-lead metals, composite materials, electronic components or subcontract services can prevent work from starting as planned.

Planners must quickly identify which orders and programme milestones are at risk, understand where new bottlenecks will emerge and determine whether alternative work can be brought forward.

When schedules are maintained manually and material availability is not connected to production planning, evaluating these consequences can be slow and decisions may be made without a complete understanding of their impact across resources and customer commitments.

How Opcenter APS Provides the Solution

Opcenter APS creates detailed production schedules based on the way the manufacturing operation actually works. Rather than planning against unlimited capacity, it considers machine availability, labour skills, tooling, materials, operation sequences and subcontract lead times together.

For aerospace and defence suppliers, this could mean coordinating composite materials, certified operators, dedicated tooling, inspection resources and subcontract processes across thousands of interdependent operations.

Material availability can also be incorporated into the schedule, allowing planners to identify affected orders when a shortage or supplier delay occurs and bring alternative work forward to reduce disruption and unnecessary work in progress.

Book an Opcenter APS Discovery Session – Contact – Kudos Solutions

Opcenter APS also complements existing ERP, MRP and manufacturing systems, providing detailed planning and scheduling without replacing the systems already used to manage the wider business. What-if scenario planning then allows manufacturers to evaluate different options without changing the live production schedule.

Planners can assess whether an urgent aerospace or defence order could be introduced without delaying existing commitments, or understand the impact of a specialist material delay, critical machine breakdown or engineering change.

They can also test whether overtime, another shift, cross-trained employees, an alternative machine or additional subcontract capacity would resolve the problem. By comparing scenarios before committing to a decision, operational teams can respond to disruption more effectively, while senior leaders gain the evidence required to support investment, recruitment and capacity decisions.

Proven in Aerospace and Defence Manufacturing

Applied Composites produces composite solutions for airframes, aircraft engines, defence and mission systems, launch vehicles and satellite structures.

The Business Benefits of Opcenter APS

Opcenter APS helps aerospace and defence manufacturers replace spreadsheet dependency and daily firefighting with a connected, constraint-based planning process. The result is greater capacity visibility, more achievable schedules and increased confidence in customer delivery commitments.

Kudos Solutions is a Siemens Expert Partner for Opcenter APS, with more than 30 years of experience implementing advanced planning and scheduling solutions.

Book an Opcenter APS Discovery Session – Contact – Kudos Solutions

Whether you manufacture aircraft structures, engine components, defence systems, precision parts or equipment for uncrewed platforms, your ability to deliver depends on coordinating complex resources, materials and programme priorities.

Kudos Solutions can help you identify where limited capacity visibility, spreadsheet-based planning or hidden manufacturing constraints are affecting production performance and customer delivery commitments. During an initial discovery session, we will explore your current planning process, the systems and data you already use, and the operational challenges creating the greatest pressure.

This could include future bottlenecks, specialist skills, material availability, engineering changes, subcontract operations or the need to respond faster when priorities change.

We can then consider how Opcenter APS could support your operation by creating more achievable schedules, improving resource utilisation and providing greater confidence in capacity and delivery decisions.

Contact – Kudos Solutions today to book your Opcenter APS discovery session and take the first step towards a more visible, responsive and controlled production planning process.