Boeing, the world’s biggest aerospace company is in the news for unveiling its engineering & technology centre in Bengaluru, with the aim to make the most of material sciences, flight sciences and data analytics. Over the years, the aircraft maker has trained its spotlight on deploying new materials for manufacturing planes and has put to use huge volumes of data for streamlining all operations.

The Boeing India Engineering & Technology Centre (BIETC) is spread over 42,000-sqft will staff around 300 engineers. The numbers are expected to double by the end of this year. The company already employs 500 personnel in its older establishment, and this number will increase to 800, as soon as BIETC starts operating.

Data analytics is one of the chief technologies being leveraged by the team at Bangalore. Boeing’s shift to digital has enabled the aerospace behemoth to extract aircraft data and  manufacturing data and leveraging it for lowering costs and streamlining operations. Greg Hyslop, CTO, Boeing believes “If we have to stay competitive and innovative in near future, it’s evident we have to rely on the talent available here to create that difference.”

Data analytics and development of advanced environment friendly coatings are some of the key areas Bengaluru centre would support. This specific focus will help in building next generation airplane health management tools or software tools for improving airline and airport operations, besides reducing costs. The centre will also undertake initiatives to run tests and evaluations. Flight tests will take up a significant chunk of the budget allocated in building a plane. The research centre will address this issue by developing better flight simulation systems, thereby reducing the cost.