Disruptive thinking has the power to spark transformation in businesses, industries, and economies, and leaders need to foster an innovation culture in order to fully capitalise upon the potential for change, said Scott Fancher, Senior Vice President, Programme Management, Integration and Development Programmes, The Boeing Company, at the Global Manufacturing and Industrialisation Summit (GMIS) in Abu Dhabi.

Fancher spoke during a keynote interview, entitled ‘Finding Transformational Ideas in The Age of Disruption’ with John Defterios, Emerging Markets Editor, CNN.

He shared that because of disruptive thinking, the Dreamliner, a project he worked on, was built to be more efficient. "We wanted to disrupt the marketplace through the convergence of evolving technologies around material systems and avionics systems and bring them all together in way that would create an airplane that was 20 per cent more fuel efficient than those in existence," said Fancher.

"It has been a success. The airplane is now deployed around the world and has enabled 130 new routes, making it more economical for carriers and allowing for a new customer experience with its innovative design. There is also a great potential market to tap into as 90 per cent of the world’s population hasn’t ever flown."

Fancher went on to say that material systems, systems themselves, and propulsion from GE and Rolls Royce are combined to build airplanes that are more efficient to operate and maintain. The convergence of these technologies focussed on improved operating efficiency is going to be key going forward.

He mentioned The Boeing Company’s strong relationship with Strata and how they have brought the aerospace factory online, facilitating the production of high quality parts on time.

He added, "The application of artificial intelligence to this market is going to be wide-reaching, it won’t just be around the products we produce but the production systems used to make them."

The inaugural Global Manufacturing and Industrialisation Summit was held from 27th 5o 30th March  at the Paris-Sorbonne Abu Dhabi, UAE, under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces.

The Summit, which is co-chaired by the UAE Ministry of Economy and the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO), is the world’s first global gathering for the manufacturing community, bringing together 1,200 decision-making leaders from governments, businesses and civil society organisations to shape a vision for the sector’s future. WAM/ MMYS