lomapaseo:
I believe you will find that most aerospace companies have backed themselves up with "Fellows" whose job it is to lead the technical expertise at an industry wide level and at the same time ensure that internal processes supporting the design and manufacture are world class .
And how's that working out for them? There's only so much one can do when you get too far away from 'the trenches'.
During my time, Boeing didn't build much of the electrical systems (panels and wire bundles was about it). We did do our own certification and acceptance testing, which helped give our staff some hands on systems experience. Now, this is all gone.