Unsettled Topics Concerning Adopting Blockchain Technology in Aerospace

Aerospace is an industry where competition is high and the need to ensure safety and security while managing costs is foremost. Stakeholders, who gain the most by working together, do not necessarily trust each other. Changing backbone technologies that drive enterprise systems and secure historical records does not happen quickly (if at all). At best, businesses adapt incrementally, building customized applications on top of legacy systems. The complexity of these legacy systems leads to duplication of efforts and data storage, making them very inefficient. Technology that augments, rather than replaces, is needed to transform these complex systems into efficient, digital processes.

Blockchain technology offers collaborative opportunities for solving some of the data problems that have long challenged the aerospace industry. The industry has been slow to adopt the technology even though experts agree that it has real potential to revolutionize the global supply chain-including maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO)-driving tremendous cost, excess inventory, and inefficiencies out of the system. This report discusses how the adoption of blockchain technology could have a significant impact on the aerospace industry and addresses some of the unsettled concerns surrounding the implementation of the technology.

NOTE: SAE EDGE(TM) Research Reports are intended to identify and illuminate key issues in emerging, but still unsettled, technologies of interest to the mobility industry. The goal of SAE EDGE(TM) Research Reports is to stimulate discussion and work in the hope of promoting and speeding resolution of identified issues. SAE EDGE(TM) Research Reports are not intended to resolve the challenges they identify or close any topic to further scrutiny.