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Man, Money and Machines
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HAL and India’s future as an aerospace power are inextricable |
Light Combat Aircraft
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By Atul Chandra
Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), towers over India’s aerospace industry with a large number of complex and crucial fixed and rotary wing programmes due to take place over this decade and is in the spotlight like never before. HAL currently has programmes ranging from design and development of the 5th generation PMF (FGFA), indigenous Tejas Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) and HJT-36 Intermediate Jet Trainers (IJT), and helicopters followed by license manufacture of the MMRCA, Su-30 MKI, Hawk and finally upgrades for the Mirage-2000 and Jaguar fighters.
HAL must ascertain if they have
the infrastructure to take on more projects and also man power requirements must
be looked at closely to ensure the requisite strength of qualified personnel is
present to execute these projects.
HAL is currently looking at enhancing its manufacturing capabilities by
sub-contracting and outsourcing many more components to private vendors.
Agarwal,director, Design and Development, HAL “On a scale of one to 10, the Indian private sector’s capabilities in the aerospace sector are between
one to two.” |
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HAL will ultimately emerge as a hub that facilitates the development of smaller aerospace companies so as to enable growth across the entire aerospace industry. It is here that the lack of a comprehensive and forward looking vision in the form of a National Aerospace Policy has lead to fragmentation of efforts. HAL’s main strength is the years of experience it has built up in the aerospace domain in processes, license manufacturing and design and development, etc. If HAL’s effort to involve the private sector is to succeed then, it must be empowered to identify suitable private sector companies and invest in them. Not only will this require greater investment from those who wish to enter the aerospace sector and a longer-term commitment from them but also hand holding by HAL to get them up the learning curve.
Currently, whatever work HAL has been able to outsource is only for manufacturing subcontracts and some modules, apart from this, they have not been able to handover projects on a turnkey basis to the private sector. On another note, the ministry of defence (Mod) has cleared an IAF proposal to look for a replacement for the HS-748 and it will be ‘Buy and Make’, with the ‘Make’ being given to a private sector partner. It remains to be seen as to what role HAL will play here
HAL is yet to establish a clear vendor base to help with the multitude of projects that the company is currently handling. Except for manufacture of components, a clear vendor base has not been developed for design and development, detail design, manufacture of full assemblies and units, has still not happened. A lot can be done in terms of outsourcing but this will not happen until long term agreements are signed with suppliers over larger periods of time. |
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