Commentary - Douglas Caster
R&D for product innovation and differentiation
Ultra Electronics is a successful group of twenty specialist businesses offering a through–life product and services portfolio that includes high technology electronic and electro–mechanical systems, sub–systems, products and components for defence, security, aerospace and transport applications worldwide. Ultra’s products and services are used on platforms such as aircraft, ships, submarines and armoured vehicles as well as in surveillance and communications systems, airports and transport systems around the world.
In Ultra’s main defence markets in recent times, expenditure has been increasing on battlespace IT systems and equipment to provide military customers with better situational awareness, quicker and more reliable command and control and the ability to synchronise military firepower with much improved accuracy. Armed forces are being equipped to allow the rapid deployment of light, mobile troops and to enable the exploitation of superior intelligence of the military situation through the use of battlespace IT. Ultra has pursued a strategy that has positioned the Group to benefit from these trends and constantly seeks opportunities to direct its R&D expenditure in order to offer new niche products and services to meet such customer requirements.
In the civil aerospace market, development programmes for new aircraft types provide Ultra with opportunities to win positions with new and innovative solutions. For example, Ultra has established itself as the world leader in cabin quietening for turboprop aircraft as a result of a continuous programme of focused R&D. More recently, following a major R&D programme with some support from the DTI, Ultra, in conjunction with its UK teaming partner GKN, has developed a revolutionary new system for protecting aircraft structures from ice build up during flight. This innovative system has been selected by Boeing for its new 787 Dreamliner aircraft for which it is a key technology enabler of the high efficiency wing that will help the aircraft achieve a 20 percent improvement in fuel efficiency.
Ultra believes that sustainable success is derived from a focus on positioning its products and services on a broad range of major international platforms and programmes. Such successful positioning is achieved by ensuring that Ultra’s offerings are differentiated from those of the competition in a manner that the customer values. Focus is sustained on creating and maintaining this differentiation in the future and on continuing to provide innovative solutions to satisfy customer requirements through the careful application of the company’s R&D funds.
