Industrial Data-Space Operating Model Director — Aerospace Supply Network

The mandate

The consortium wants suppliers to exchange quality, provenance and capacity signals without surrendering commercially sensitive data to a central member. Its technical pilot proved federated transfer, but participants disagree about identity assurance, usage-policy enforcement, derivative rights, liability and who funds exceptions. Unless these operating questions are settled, another connector demonstration will not create enough trust for production adoption.

The deliverable is an Industrial Data-Space Operating Constitution applied to three use cases: non-conformance containment, component provenance and constrained-capacity planning. It will include participant roles, onboarding, identity, policy language, semantic contracts, observability, dispute handling, liability options, cost allocation and exit. A board-ready choice must distinguish what technology can enforce from what relies on contract, audit or relationship trust.

At the end of week three, milestone one supplies participant interviews, use-case value chains and the unresolved-rights register. Milestone two in week seven delivers operating options tested through tabletop transactions and disputes. Week thirteen closes milestone three with the agreed constitution, implementation backlog, legal schedules, economic model and a witnessed simulation covering breach, withdrawal and contested derivative use.

Acceptance requires at least five legally independent members to approve the role and decision matrix, Legal to convert core policy concepts into usable contract schedules, and Security to trace identity and usage evidence for an unseen exchange. Finance must reperform member economics, while the council must decide every material unresolved liability option. Technical connectivity without signed operating acceptance is not completion.

The client consortium will provide pilot artefacts, contracts, data classifications, connector logs and use-case economics, and will nominate empowered business, legal, security and architecture representatives from each member. Supplier representatives will be available, and an independent secretariat will record decisions. Members remain responsible for export classification, product safety, data release and contractual approval in their own organisations.

Why this is external work

Each anchor member prefers governance that protects its existing bargaining position, and the technology consortium that built the pilot cannot neutrally judge contractual dependence on its components. The secretariat lacks the specialist capacity to connect federated controls with industrial operating and liability choices. Independent facilitation is necessary to create an adoptable constitution rather than another architecture paper.

What you will own

• Map value, data, decisions, rights and liabilities across the three exchanges from originating supplier through every consuming and derivative use.
• Define participant onboarding, identity assurance, policy expression, semantic conformance, monitoring, suspension and orderly exit with accountable decision-makers.
• Separate controls enforceable by connector or cryptography from obligations dependent on contract, audit, certification or participant behaviour.
• Facilitate tabletop transactions covering inaccurate provenance, unauthorised derivation, participant insolvency, export restriction and urgent safety investigation.
• Construct cost and benefit allocation across anchor members, smaller suppliers, shared services and exception handling without assuming equal negotiating power.
• Frame council decisions on central versus federated capabilities, evidence retention, dispute venue, liability caps and funding of common assets.
• Deliver implementation-ready schedules, decision records and a governance simulation that the consortium secretariat can repeat as new members join.

Candidate qualifications

• Designed a production operating model for an industrial data space, consortium exchange, regulated utility or comparable multi-party infrastructure.
• Negotiated data rights, derivative use, liability and exit among legally independent manufacturers with unequal commercial power.
• Understands federated identity, policy enforcement, semantic contracts and audit evidence deeply enough to expose where technical sovereignty claims end.
• Led tabletop tests that converted abstract governance into decisions under breach, safety, export, insolvency or withdrawal conditions.
• Built member economics encompassing shared capability, participant integration, compliance burden and exception cost rather than grant-funded pilot activity.
• Produced contractual and operating artefacts adopted by lawyers, security leaders, plant operators and smaller suppliers after external support ended.

Non-negotiables

• The named director must lead all member negotiations and attend working sessions in Madrid and Seville throughout the thirteen weeks.
• No financial interest or delivery attachment may exist with connector, cloud, certification or integration providers in the pilot.
• Member intellectual property, export classification and product-safety decisions remain with authorised organisations and cannot be overridden by consensus facilitation.
• Acceptance depends on operating and contractual adoption, not publication of a standards-aligned architecture or successful demonstration.

1. 49 words maximum. Describe a federated exchange where a technology-enforced policy and a contract-dependent obligation had to be separated.
2. 49 words maximum. How would you allocate common data-space cost when anchor manufacturers and small suppliers receive unequal value?
3. 49 words maximum. Which unseen dispute would you simulate before asking independent aerospace firms to accept the operating constitution?