Aerospace has the orders. The more immediate question for manufacturers and MRO providers is how much work their existing people, equipment and approved processes can put through the system. The distinction matters in 2026. Commercial aerospace demand remains high, while aircraft production backlogs are keeping older fleets in service for longer. Engine aftermarket revenues have also risen sharply, with analysis of four major engine manufacturers showing first-quarter 2026 growth of between 20% and 40%. That activity is putting greater emphasis on MRO capacity. Certified labour, tooling, repair approvals, inspection and engine-module availability all influence how quickly additional demand can be converted into completed work. For Derby-based AddQual, inspection and qualification deserve particular attention because both sit at points where physical parts become engineering data and engineering data becomes an approved decision.
“Capacity is often discussed in terms of machines, facilities and headcount, but there is another part of the equation,” said AddQual Managing Director Ben Anderson. “How long does it take to inspect a component, understand the result and get the information to the engineer who needs to make a decision? There is useful capacity to be found in that process.”
More MRO work means more inspection
The growth of the aftermarket brings a straightforward consequence for aerospace quality departments. More components entering repair generate more inspection, measurement, engineering review and qualification activity. AddQual works across this part of the aerospace process, providing metrology and part verification, inspection planning, FAIR and LAIR support, engineering investigations, re-engineering and plant support. Its development of MiDAS takes the company further into the handling and use of the data created by those activities. The principle is practical. A measurement system can generate detailed information about a component very quickly. The next task is getting that information into a form that supports the repair or qualification decision.
Anderson said: “Aerospace companies have invested heavily in measurement technology and those systems can produce an enormous amount of data. We are interested in the time after the measurement has been taken. “If data can be structured and presented so an engineer gets to the information they need sooner, you can shorten part of the qualification process. Across a busy MRO operation, those individual gains start to matter.”
AI is moving into operational aerospace
The wider aerospace and defence market is also moving AI closer to operational deployment. The industry discussion has shifted towards trusted applications, with AI increasingly being considered for engineering workflows and production environments rather than as a standalone productivity tool. That has implications for inspection. AddQual's work on MiDAS and MiDAS MIND is centred on creating a more useful relationship between metrology data and engineering decision-making. It also reflects a basic requirement for industrial AI: the information feeding the system has to be reliable and relevant to the engineering task.
“AI becomes interesting to us when you give it a defined aerospace problem,” Anderson said. “An engineer may be dealing with measurement results, drawings, specifications and previous inspection information. Helping them navigate that material and identify what is relevant is a much more tangible use of the technology. “The engineering judgement remains extremely valuable. What we can do is give that engineer better access to the information behind the decision.”
Qualification matters to supply chain resilience
The same capacity issue extends into aerospace manufacturing. Castings, forgings, titanium and high-temperature alloys remain important factors in production ramp-up, while additive manufacturing is attracting attention for low-volume and long-lead components. Digital production methods are also being explored as a way of accelerating the qualification of replacement parts and supporting more localised production. Producing a component through a different route still creates a requirement to demonstrate that it meets its engineering and quality requirements. That brings inspection and qualification back into focus. AddQual's combination of physical metrology services and digital qualification technology gives the company a role on both sides of that process.
“Additive manufacturing is a good example because the manufacturing technology gets a lot of attention, but qualification is what gives industry confidence in the part,” Anderson said. “As supply chains introduce different manufacturing routes and repair methods, the ability to inspect, compare and qualify efficiently becomes part of how quickly those technologies can be adopted.”
The workforce calculation is changing too
Aerospace is dealing with capacity at a time when experienced engineering skills are valuable and AI skills are being introduced into more operational roles. For inspection and quality teams, the answer is likely to involve making specialist knowledge easier to apply across a larger volume of work. This is also where AddQual sees automation having a practical role. Removing repetitive data handling from an experienced engineer's workload gives that person more time for the decisions that require engineering knowledge. Anderson said: “If you have a skilled engineer spending time finding information, transferring data or carrying out repetitive parts of a process, there is an obvious place to look for improvement.
“We want the technology to do the work it is good at and give engineers more time for the work they are good at. For an aerospace industry trying to increase output with a finite pool of specialist skills, that is becoming a very commercial issue.”
The scale of aerospace demand makes new facilities, equipment and recruitment important parts of the capacity picture. AddQual's proposition addresses another part: extracting more usable engineering value from the inspection and qualification processes already taking place. As more aircraft remain in service and repair volumes grow, the minutes and hours between measurement and engineering approval will increasingly count alongside the number of machines on the shopfloor.
