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The appointment of a Chief Technical Officer has invigorated the innovation process, and technology development is becoming more closely aligned with Group strategy.
Following the appointment of a Chief Technical Officer (CTO) in April 2006, innovation, and particularly technological innovation, has been strengthened with greater focus being put on aligning the Group’s Research & Technology (
R&T) with the company’s business strategy.
The CTO position has been assigned authority through a new place on the EADS Executive Committee and now has responsibility for the entire R&T budget across all Divisions. This budget will increasingly be aimed at supporting the Group’s strategic growth priorities.
The CTO is also introducing measures to ensure that each Division benefits fully from technologies developed in the others. For example, the greatest expertise in composite aircraft structures resides within Airbus, whereas the best sensor technology resides in Defence & Security.
The refined R&T strategy builds upon the Group’s growing pace of innovation. EADS filed almost 800 new patents in 2006, up from more than 300 in 2001. Additionally, the number of patented inventions owned grew to more than 5,000 in 2006, up from more than 4,000 in 2001.
Aligning R&T with Group strategy
The CTO has started to better align the EADS technology portfolio with the Group’s business strategy by re-balancing the R&T budget in favour of the growth areas in the business. He aims to deliver more shareholder value through a stringent, leading-edge R&T portfolio that enables flawless introduction of new technologies on future products, with strong returns on investment at the end of the innovation pipeline.
Key growth technologies have been identified and allocated “protected” budgets. These technologies include fully composite fuselages, secure communications and software, enhanced vision for all-weather helicopters and synthetic-world modelling, to name but a few.
Behind these new goals there is a new management structure for R&T. The EADS Executive Technical Council (ETC) is responsible for ensuring that top-down technology strategy is implemented through the Divisions and Business Units. Headed by the CTO and made up of the technical directors of the Divisions, the ETC meets regularly to formulate future strategies and to identify synergies. The ETC ensures that a balance is maintained between the top-down strategic guidance and the bottom-up expertise, creativity and responsibility.
The Corporate Technical Capabilities function (reporting to the CTO) is in charge of the corporate R&T production facilities that guarantee the Group’s technical innovation potential with a focus on the long-term horizon.
Global Innovation Networks (GINs) have been established for each of the five major research fields in order to advance technology fields of major importance to the Group and to ensure that relevant information is shared across the Divisions. An experienced executive will manage each GIN.
New roles
The CTO has a wide role. In addition to R&T, he is responsible for Group transversal technical processes, such as Systems Engineering and common tools for Product Lifecycle Management. He also carries out specific technical assessments on behalf of the Chief Executives and the Executive Committee. The responsibility for corporate Information Management (IM) has been passed from Finance to the CTO’s organisation. He plans to harmonise design and engineering tools such as computer-aided design software across the Group and its suppliers in order to improve Group integration.
He also intends to foster a culture of innovation. Consequently, R&T and Human Resources are building the “EADS Expert Initiative” to identify technical experts and to offer them career opportunities similar to those of managers. In further initiatives an EADS Innovation Hall of Fame is being created. This will acknowledge and honour those responsible for generating the highest number of patents (“The Great Inventors”), those who are most effective in bringing inventions to the business (“The Great Innovators”) and workers with unique skills (“The Great Craftsmen”).
