A national conference on aerospace quality and reliability held here on Friday underscored the need for establishing a unified quality and reliability framework for aerospace that would bridge the gap between research and development, certifying authorities and production agencies.

The conference, held on the theme ‘Assuring Quality and Reliability excellence for an Atmanirbhar Aerospace Ecosystem’ was jointly organised here by the Society for Aerospace Quality and Reliability (SAQR) and the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC).

VSSC Director A. Rajarajan, who inaugurated the summit, highlighted the need for adopting advanced quality tools such as predictive artificial intelligence (AI) for an Atmanirbhar aerospace system.

SAQR President and former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) Chairperson S. Somanath urged start-ups to inculcate a ‘quality culture’ in the evolving start-up ecosystem in the country. World-class reliability is a necessity for moving towards a supply chain ecosystem for aerospace, he said.

Commodore (Retd) Sadashiv Vombatkere delivered the key note address on ‘Importance of cyber resilience in quality and reliability.’ Prabhakar V. Varde, former scientist with the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre; K. P. Sreekumar, chairperson, Synbrains; and Karthik Raghunandan, chief of product execution and operations, Bellatrix Aerospace, delivered technical talks. Centre directors of ISRO and SAQR representatives were also present.