Aerospace & Defense Suppliers
Shifting demands requires new supplier strategies to deliver on time, on target and on cost.
What are the trends changing the supplier landscape?
Technological and environmental leaps are reshaping the industry, what are they and how will they affect your business?
Insights from Safran
Frederic Vetil
Vice President Manufacturing 4.0 Safran Group
Manufacturing Agility
How do you cope with the highly variable market demand?
Commercial airframe manufacturers are sitting on backlogs equivalent to about eight years’ worth of production. While continuously increasing their production rates, airframe manufacturers are demanding more visibility into their suppliers’ production and sourcing plans, hoping to gain more advance warning of possible supply chain disruptions.
To meet the demand peaks, suppliers must reorganize their manufacturing plants to make them leaner, more agile and more connected in order to drive operational efficiency.
Also transforming their manufacturing operations by adopting new technologies such as robotics, additive manufacturing, IoT, augmented reality or AI is key for differentiation and for attracting new customers.
Supplier-created content represents 50-60 percent of the value of an aerospace system.
Aircraft Complexity
How do you develop and deliver more complex designs while protecting your margin?
While aerospace and defense suppliers are now accountable to drive significant cost reduction and ensure higher levels of quality, they must also create increasingly complex components and sub-systems to meet OEMs’ demand for innovation. This requires serious investment in new engineering and manufacturing capabilities to increase innovation and drive costs down, to ensure consistency and traceability of all products and process information, to comply to programs and regulations requirements, while protecting vital Intellectual Property.
New Markets
How do you enable diversification and expansion into new markets?
Today, we are part of a new century of powered flight and space exploration. We see the emergence of players that are disrupting the mobility market with innovative configurations. Space companies are lowering cost to access space with their reusable launchers and innovative technologies, while aviation companies are also reinventing and reinvigorating their businesses by accelerating zero emission aircraft innovations.
This transformation requires a new supply chain model, where all players in the value chain would be key to achieve these new market penetrations. It would only be possible with a strong collaboration and transparency between OEMs and their suppliers to accelerate program development and overcome any new technological barriers.
Digitalization - The smart path to supplier development and program success
Digitalization is a must for Aerospace and Defense suppliers to streamline processes, improve performance and responsiveness with aircraft manufacturers.
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