Still flying high after Farnborough International Airshow 2022

FIA 2022 – red hot temperatures and soaring innovation

It’s been a long summer, so let’s reflect back on the Farnborough International Airshow 2022 (FIA2022) and how it was a ‘moment that mattered’ for us at Capgemini, and for the Aerospace & Defence industry. The iconic event returned on 18 – 22 July with a bang, to showcase the latest innovations from Aviation, Defence, Space and Technology. Industry leaders and experts from across the globe came together to reconnect after a 4-year hiatus. It was a hot week, not only in temperature but also for the display of innovation, creativity, and passion throughout the exhibition, flying display and talks given.

We reconnected with many colleagues and friends from the industry whom we have not seen since before the pandemic, which created an energetic atmosphere where our guests and visitors at the stand were eager to find out what we do.

“I never knew Capgemini did that!…”

This was the typical comment from visitors when seeing our stand and exploring our demos. Indeed, what we brought was the best of Intelligent Industry, personified by our experts and their live on stand demos. Here’s why:

Krisztian Benyo showed that “Beyond the leading edge” is becoming a reality through our Quantum Computing case study, based on an Airbus wingbox, creating significant interest in how we can practically apply Quantum in the near future.

Klaas Birkenfeld, Davide Cislaghi, David Gyimesi, Neil Hunter & Scott Reid brought to life “Sustainable by Design” through an MBSE driven R&D use case for multi-purpose drone development. Supported by DE-X, a systems engineering approach to accelerating certification of drones and eVTOL assets. The custom drone sparked huge interest in our end-to-end capabilities and how they can help clients transform the engineering to flight pathways.

John Ward showed us that how we immerse ourselves into “Supply chain resilience through intelligence” is perhaps as important as how we build the data and the technology itself. What does it mean? What does it look like? John showed our guests the future and now, through Andy 3D, with digital remote assistance, quality tracking, at scale.

Virginie Bonnot reinforced that “Human Centricity” is paramount and we must place the person at the centre of the transformation always. We do this through our Connected Operator capabilities that include Smart Garments with sensors to measure/analyse operator posture and our Track & Trace capabilities to monitor real-time movement of critical assets.

Graham Upton demonstrated that real-time connectivity for factories over long distances is a reality today through our “SPARKLE” capability, a live Digital Twin of the Airbus factory.
Graham and Neil White also worked alongside me to bring to life the connected end-to-end story of Intelligent Industry, why it matters to us and how we can help our clients transform.

Our emerging expert talent is the lifeblood of our company

The last day at FIA is traditionally dedicated to the public and this year there was a special focus on STEM and promoting the A&D industry to school children. The intent was to highlight the importance of science and engineering to drive innovation, creativity, and sustainability for the future of A&D. Beth Clarke delivered a captivating keynote message in the FINNtech area whilst Maz Ahmed, Billy Cavanagh, George Hull and James Kelly engaged with public visitors and potential recruits on the stand, bringing to life what it’s like to work at Capgemini and why our collective future is so exciting.

Your voices matter

In the lead up to FIA2022, we ran a series of thought-provoking blogs to highlight what we were excited to bring to the show. Our contributors come from all areas of Capgemini and helped to raise awareness of the art-of-the possible across Intelligent Industry. For example, Gianmarco Scalabrin showed how we are driving Net Zero through eVTOL aircraft. Read more of our blogs here.

Our key learnings

It was great to see the interaction of our guests and staff. This was not a sales pitch but a walk-through of Intelligent Industry, whether that be at a high-level to understand the capabilities, the compelling business case, the innovation we are driving, or getting into the nitty-gritty of the technology and impact on people. For us, this creates a great and exciting template for future events.

Join us at The Manufacturer events

Looking forward from FIA 2022, we are building up for The Manufacturer events in Liverpool on 16th and 17th November. Our experts will be at the Smart Factory Expo (Hall B, Stand E36) with Zoe Jackson, Graham Upton and special guests chairing roundtables at the Leaders’ Summit. Our commitment to UK manufacturing is exemplified by our proud sponsorship and judging of The Young Manufacturer of the Year category.
Look out for our insightful and thought-provoking blog series that will take you on our journey to The Manufacturer events.

We’re still flying high and look forward to meeting you in Liverpool!

Mike Dwyer

Leads the Intelligent Industry

Mike leads the Intelligent Industry Centre of Expertise (CoEx) in the UK and brings a deep knowledge of Industry 4.0 and how it transforms the worlds of engineering, manufacturing, service, and operations and through the process, systems, data, people & culture change.
Mike is an experienced digital engineering consulting and delivery lead with 25 years of working in R&D, engineering development and digital transformation for Rolls-Royce Defence and Siemens Germany. Mike has worked in other organisations across a variety of sectors including Aerospace & Defence, Power Generation, Rail, Oil and Gas, Formula 1, and Electronics & High-Tech.