Walking through the Paris air show last month, I was struck by the large number of companies exhibiting under one regional or cluster umbrella. There were, to mention a few, Aero-space Valley, Rockford Area Aerospace Network, Monterrey Aerocluster Mexico, Isle of Man Aerospace Cluster, Aero Montreal, Skywin Wallonie and Northwest Aerospace Alliance. Such groupings have a basic economic rationale: They allow small suppliers to be present at a show without bearing the full costs of renting their own stands in an exhibit hall. But there also is a deeper meaning to this profusion of the clusters.
展开▼
