India’s aerospace industry must embrace end-to-end digitisation if it hopes to scale up and emerge as a global manufacturing hub, according to Banmali Agarwala, Chairman of Tata Advanced Systems (TAS).
Speaking at a symposium hosted by the Indian Foundation for Quality Management (IFQM), Agarwala stressed that while India has made steady progress in aerospace production, the lack of digital systems — particularly in design and production — is a critical roadblock to scale and global competitiveness.
“The industry is not digitised”: legacy systems holding back progress
Agarwala pointed out that many aerospace platforms in use today are still based on legacy blueprints. These platforms undergo physical revisions, but without corresponding digital upgrades.
“You still don’t have digitised drawings in many cases. The basic platform itself is old, and most changes are made manually — it’s far from the digital-first approach we need,” he said.
He added that without digitisation of schematics, design workflows, and quality assurance, it will be difficult to build reliable supply chains or maintain efficiency at scale.
Need for scale: From prototype to production
Agarwala emphasised that India’s aerospace ambitions can no longer rely on low-volume production or pilot projects. “We can’t stop at building one or two Tejas jets. We need a system that allows us to make 100, and then 1,000,” he noted.
For that, scalable infrastructure — from digital procurement to precision manufacturing — is non-negotiable. Digitisation, he said, is not a buzzword but a backbone for repeatability, cost control, and timeline accuracy.
This transformation also has direct implications for aerospace MSMEs — many of which serve as suppliers for Tier 1 firms like TAS, HAL, and DRDO.
Indian firms must absorb and build on global tech
Another major gap highlighted by Agarwala was the inability of Indian aerospace firms to fully absorb foreign technologies. He warned that without building internal capacity and R&D depth, India will remain dependent on imported tech.
“We do get access to global technologies — but we rarely build on top of it. Either we stop at adoption, or we wait for another round of tech transfer. That loop must be broken,” he said.
For India to truly lead in next-gen aerospace — from UAVs to defence avionics — companies must move beyond being manufacturing vendors to IP-owning innovators.
MSME participation crucial to India’s aerospace push
With global OEMs demanding faster, more agile suppliers, Indian aerospace MSMEs now have an opportunity to plug into global defence and aviation value chains. But this will require upskilling, digitised compliance, and tooling upgrades across the board.
Policy support from the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of MSME — including cluster-based support, offset linkage, and digitisation grants — could accelerate this transition.
India’s aerospace potential is vast, but its scalability will depend on a dual mindset: build faster, and build smarter.