Closing the Data Gap: Building the Digital Thread for Smarter, Sustainable Aerospace

In today’s manufacturing landscape, one challenge keeps resurfacing: the data gap. Information scattered across tools, systems, and organisations slows innovation, introduces uncertainty, and weakens competitiveness. For advanced sectors like aerospace—where decisions rely on precision, traceability, and fast iteration—this gap becomes even more critical.

Within CompSTLar, we are tackling this challenge head-on. Over the first months of the project, our consortium worked intensively to define the Digital Environment that will support a new generation of composite aerostructure design and manufacturing. Through extensive discussions and collaborative modelling—coordinated by ENG—we reached a preliminary definition of our Digital Schema, the foundation of the project’s Digital Framework.

At its core, the CompSTLar Digital Framework establishes:

  • A unified data backbone, ensuring that design, simulation, production, and inspection data flow seamlessly and consistently.
  • A modular and domain-agnostic architecture, capable of integrating new tools, services, and lifecycle stages.
  • Interoperability by design, using standards, connectors, and semantic alignment to enable true end-to-end data continuity—the essence of a Digital Thread.

This foundational work produced two key outcomes:

  1. The CompSTLar Process Mapping, describing every step, partner, activity, and dataflow that defines the digital pipeline.
  2. The CompSTLar Digital Framework, outlining a federated, modular, and interoperable infrastructure to orchestrate the lifecycle of thermoplastic composite aerostructures.

CompSTLar Digital Schema

These results were defined during the initial four months in the activity of Tasks 1.2 “Digital architecture definition and data protocols for connectivity” and gathered in Deliverable 1.2 “Digital Framework Specifications”: digital architecture and data protocols aim to link manufacturing, in-service performance, maintenance, repair, and recycling—all within a unified Digital Thread.

This is more than a technical exercise: it’s the first step toward a holistic, interoperable research ecosystem enabling smarter, faster, and more sustainable decision-making across the aircraft supply chain.

And what’s happening now? With this baseline established, we now move forward toward implementation a real, operational ecosystem—and closer to realizing Europe’s vision of digital sovereignty and greener, more efficient aviation.