The Toulouse Cluster of On-board Systems: A Process of Collective Innovation and Learning

Analysis by product or by type of activity is becoming less and less pertinent when characterizing the production organization of industrial clusters and local productive systems. In numerous regions and metropolitan areas, the way that economic activities are based geographically reveals relationships which go across different sectors of activity, on the basis of the similarity of skills required. At Toulouse, on-board systems, mainly sets of equipment composed of electronic and computer components integrated into an aircraft, a satellite or an automobile, were first developed on a sectorial basis before becoming progressively the subject of transverse skills and knowledge between the different industrial sectors (aeronautics, space, automobile electronics). Today this system is tending to consolidate on the basis of positive externalities such as the sharing of common subcontracting of information technology services, the collaboration of industrial firms with engineering science institutions, the circulation of personnel within the local labour market. To this must be added a strong institutional input which is manifested by the addition of an “on-board systems” section to the Competitive Cluster “Aeronautics and Space” common to the Midi-Pyrenees and Aquitaine regions. In the case of Toulouse, the “on-board systems” activities form the basis of a local organization of these high-technology activities into a local skills system.