The aerospace industry is responsible for designing, manufacturing and maintaining civil and military aircraft.

Optipro Solutions have been involved in supplying technologies and services to this industry over the last five years. The aerospace industry is a capital intensive industry that operates mainly as an "engineer-to-order" or "make-to-order" business.

Changes to the bill of materials, process and work instructions are highly regulated. In some instances this industry is also involved in refurbishing business with the need to "strip and quote". The industry is highly regulated and requirements around material traceability and statistical process control form the base of requirements for quality control. The industry can be divided into (OEM's) and their suppliers. Both these industries have "job shop" type of manufacturing facilities with several outsourced processes and specialised capabilities in adapting to new requirements.

High precision and specialised processes form part of a fairly long manufacturing process with special conditions around temperature, material composition and operator involvement. High input costs normally result in low margins and pressure for delivering on time. Fixed price contracts with commercial escalation conditions need to be taken into consideration in the estimating and execution thereof. Distribution planning is important as parts are manufactured all over the world and need to be consolidated in the final assembly.