You have been quite articulate in expressing your reservations about the Strategic Partner clause of the new Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP). What, in Boeing’s experience, should be an ideal mix of public-private partnership in defence manufacturing?

It will be necessary to fine-tune not just strategic partnerships but strategic partnerships in a public-private manner that optimises the full value of what the country can offer and then link it to the future platforms.

The successful examples involve co-opting public and private enterprise in a way that leveraged the investment made in the public enterprise for multiple decades. It is difficult to find a single example in the world where it was just the private or public enterprise. Look at Turkey, Japan, Brazil, in all cases there is a fine balancing act of co-opting the capabilities of both public and private enterprise.

In what way can Boeing contribute to the ambitious ‘Make in India’ going beyond assembling of kits? To what extent can you share the know-how and know-why?

To accelerate momentum in the aerospace industry and capitalise on India’s strengths, you have to focus on three things - scale, scope and skill.

First, scale. To create a credible, globally competitive industrial base, you’ve got to have a critical scale. That scale has to be thoughtfully created. By consolidating requirements across different services. If every services requirement for every mission is fragmented and we aren’t able to consolidate in meaningful numbers, then scale opportunity is lost. Similarly, the scale has to be thoughtfully built by thinking across aircraft systems and looking at critical components. If every aircraft type has a different engine, will miss opportunity to create a scale to build a globally competitive industrial base for a common engine across multiple platforms.

Second point is scope. We have to evolve from built-to-print to design, develop and manufacture, which requires a lot more than just build to print. We need a full ecosystem for industrial participation and a tiered structure that exists in the world to support that. The scope piece also requires to go beyond the immediate platform in question