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SUMMARY 16 The panel recommends reconsideration of NASA's activities and the resources available to support technology validation efforts with an eye to enlarging programs on validation and permitting work on advanced on basic design data on composites including consideration of manufacturing technology. These programs should be closely coupled with strengthened mechanisms to ensure that areas selected for additional effort are relevant to the needs of industry and that the results can be applied with confidence. Managing in the New Environment The managers of aircraft companies face an array of threatening changes, e.g., weakened domestic customers, increased foreign competition, pressure to internationalize manufacture, escalating financial risk, need for capital, etc. Four challenges warrant special mention: 1. Managing technological innovation to retain product leadership in the face of escalating costs for developing and validating new technology and growing uncertainty over market requirements and customer liability. 2. Developing new financial instruments and procedures that will help weakened customers purchase aircraft without undue exposure for the manufacturer. Ironically, innovative financing is becoming as important as innovative technology for this high-technology industry. 3. Learning to move from a position of global dominance to senior partnership with companies that have long chafed at the junior position in which U.S. dominance has placed them. 4. Developing the strategies for selective technological leadership that will permit overall systems leadership in a world where total leadership in technology is no longer practical. Achieving a lead position in an interdependent world will call for wisdom and vision of a high order. Managing Human Resources Aircraft manufacture is highly cyclical. The concomitant instability in employment is compounded by technological obsolescence that continually requires radically different skills. Thus, unstable employment affects professional, technical, and production workers. The assemblage of skills and working relationships in the aircraft manufacturing complex is a priceless national asset that must be preserved.
