If and when microgravity manufacturing, asteroid mining, and luxury space hotels will come to be, no one can say for sure. What is certain: As launch costs fall and launch rates skyrocket, promising new business models for space are emerging even as today’s space businesses scale in a big way, particularly in the commercial realm. That scaling is most obvious in space-based telecommunications, where fleets of thousands of satellites offer speed and coverage that the makers of the Telstar-style birds of yore could only dream of.
Those opportunities come with challenges. When you do business in space, you must execute on not only the space part – the requirements analysis, the designs, the reviews, the compliance, the supply-chain organization, and the precision manufacturing (assuming hardware; space-grade software development is no less demanding), the testing – but also the business part.
As startups grow from research and development to full-scale manufacturing, they need to shift from a mindset focused on expenditures to one geared toward generating revenue. This involves predicting demand, satisfying customer needs, and achieving profitability while simultaneously managing employees, collaborating with suppliers, overseeing finances, ensuring quality and compliance, and addressing all the other complexities of running a business. Whether you’re in microgravity manufacturing, asteroid mining, or space hospitality, these challenges must be navigated in an evolving commercial space market where fixed-price contracts are becoming the standard. It’s a challenging landscape that demands mastery on many fronts.
Transforming Your Space Startup With Smart ERP
The good news is, enterprise resource planning (ERP) software makers have been developing an integrated suite tackling all these issues for decades, and they have encoded best practices across the board. Where ERP systems stop, those applications of trusted partners extend a broad menu of niche industry solutions. The problem used to be that you had to be a big company to afford ERP systems. However, cloud-based ERP offerings now make economic and business sense for start-ups and medium-sized companies with complex processes and ambitious plans that beg for solutions that can grow with them. The space business is home to a growing number of such companies.
To return to those examples, manufacturing in space will involve complex products, extremely low tolerances, and extensive change management processes. Product data management, revision control, and configure-to-order capabilities will be indispensable. Space-based operations require the management of complex supply chains, remote asset tracking, and stringent compliance requirements. A successful space company will have to manage complex projects, custom product configurations, and long sales cycles.
Cloud-based ERP suites manage complex projects across dozens of industries – including, of course, traditional aerospace and defense. They track inventory and materials, coordinate supply chains, and keep tabs on intricate manufacturing throughout the product lifecycle. They calculate and allocate costs precisely, enabling real-time visibility into budgets versus actuals across individual projects and organization-wide – which is all the more important given the space business’s often extended sales cycles and lengthy product-development timelines. Cloud-based ERP systems aid compliance with. They integrate with specialized, industry-mainstay product lifecycle management (PLM) and configure specialized project-pricing and quoting tools.
Open the Doors to AI
All this happens securely, and it also sets the scene to be able to quickly incorporate AI into business processes. Leading ERP systems are increasingly embedding AI into core processes so it provides a seamless experience for their employees and customers.
A final, key consideration for space companies in the early stages of growth: Cloud-based ERP systems can speed up R&D and iterative engineering processes in prototype and single-unit or low-volume production, enable a smooth transition to mass production, and manage that mass production when the time comes.
The size and complexity of traditional on-premises ERP systems made them the domain of aerospace firms whose hyperbolic growth was behind them. Cloud-based ERP systems have changed that. They help small space businesses run more effectively today, and they can grow and diversify along with them as they become the big space businesses of the future.
