Dr. Pritchard is an Associate Professor at the State University of New York - Empire State College located in Buffalo, New York USA and his Ph.D. dissertation from the State University of New York University at Buffalo is titled “Global Decentralization of Commercial Aircraft Production: Implications to the U.S. Based Manufacturing Activity”.

Dr. Pritchard has over 25 years of aerospace experience in the areas of international business, finance and management. During his 30 year career in the aerospace industry, he has been involved with seven aircraft launches, managed international offsets programs, completed foreign financing transactions and has expertise in aerospace marketing and product introduction into the regions of Europe, Russia/CIS, China and Asia.

Dr. Pritchard’s research in the commercial aircraft industry focuses on the global supply network, and has been published in leading academic journals (extensively cited in The Economist, Financial Times, Newsweek, and Business Week). He also has articles in aviation trade journals such as Flight Global and Aviation Week, and has spoken at numerous aerospace industry conferences in the United States and abroad.

Dr. Pritchard’s current research is titled “Aerospace 4.0: Implications to the New Manufacturing Ecosystem” which focuses on the Factory of Future for the next generation aircraft. The next generation aircraft (mid 2020s) could be adopting advanced manufacturing robotic applications (COBOTS-Collaborative Robots, MOBOTS-Industrial Robots on Automated Guide Vehicles), automated fiber placement/fiber metal laminates materials, additive manufacturing processes and factory digitalization. The aircraft clean sheet designs will integrate advancing robotic technologies with transforming the assembly process by eliminating traditional monument style production equipment/tooling. The new clean sheet aircraft will be standardizing the practice of additive manufacturing components (3D printing) which obsoletes many traditional machining technologies.