SDR (System Design Responsibility)

Leonardo, BAE Systems (BAES) and Airbus Defence and Space are both partner companies and main subcontractors of Panavia. Under Panavia governance they are responsible in their respective countries for the development, production and procurement of the Tornado equipment and components.

The System Design Responsibility (SDR) concept determines the allocation of responsibility for design, development, qualification and clearance to one specific Panavia Partner Company (under the governance of the Panavia Systems Engineering Directorate) at major component, system, sub system and equipment (Equipment Design Responsibility) level. This allocation is permanent and is made under pragmatic consideration of a range of factors such as national work share and investment, engineering expertise, resource levels etc.

Leonardo has the responsibility for the wings, BAES for the front and rear fuselage including the empennage and Airbus Defence and Space for the center fuselage. Similarly, tri-national work-sharing is used for engines, general- and avionic-equipment.

Single source is utilised as the main and most cost-effective work-sharing principle.

Joint Ventures such as the Tornado programme offer lower costs to each participating nation than purely national programmes while industry remains competitive in the state of the art technology through sharing of research, development and production investment costs among the participants.