The aerospace industry is experiencing an unprecedented scenario. The air travel drifted from years of constant growth and positive expectations to a place where the uncertainty is the most predominant distinctive. Consequently, the aerospace ecosystem needs to adapt to cope with challenges never faced before. Understanding the evolution of the aerospace ecosystem is thus essential to foster its progression. This research aims at the identification and categorisation of key enablers that have been linked to the growth of aerospace ecosystems. To this extent, key enablers are first identified and then categorised using interpretive structural modelling (ISM) and cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC) methodologies. An analysis is elaborated for a developed aerospace ecosystem, the United Kingdom, and an emergent aerospace ecosystem, Mexico. Results evidence a contrasting categorisation of key enablers among both ecosystems. On the other hand, the automotive ecosystem and geopolitical factors are considered as underpinning enablers for both aerospace ecosystems evolution.
Aerospace manufacturing industry is predicted to continue growing. Rising demand is triggering the current global aerospace ecosystem to evolve and adapt to challenges never faced before. New players into the aerospace manufacturing industry and the development of new ecosystems are evidencing its evolution. Understanding how the aerospace ecosystem has evolved is thus essential to prepare optimal conditions to nurture its growth. Recent studies have successfully combined economics and network science methods to map, analyse and predict the evolution of industrial ecosystems. In comparison to previous studies which apply network science-based methodologies to macro-economic research, this paper uses these methods to analyse the evolution of a particular industrial ecosystem, namely the aerospace sector. In particular, we develop bipartite country-product networks based on trade data over 25 years, to identify patterns and similarities in the evolution of developed aerospace manufacturing countries ecosystems. The analysis is elaborated at a macroscopic (network) and microscopic (nodes) levels. Motivated by studies in ecological networks, we use nestedness analysis to find patterns depicting the distribution and evolution of exported products across ecosystems. Our analysis reveals that developed ecosystems tend to become more analogous, as countries lean towards having a revealed comparative advantage (RCA) in the same group of products. Countries also tend to become more nested in their aerospace product space as they start developing a higher RCA. It is revealed that although countries develop an advantage on unique products, they also tend to increase competition with each other. Further analysis shows that manufactured products have a stronger correlation to an aerospace ecosystem than primary products; and in particular, the automotive sector shows the highest correlation with positive aerospace sector evolution. Competition between countries with well-developed aerospace ecosystems tends to centre on automotive parts, general industrial machinery, power generating machinery and equipment, and chemical materials and products.
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