Bottom line: Supply chains are the lifeblood of any business, and the more agile and flexible they are, the greater resilience and strength any manufacturer has.
What’s Making Supplier Quality Urgent
For complex manufacturers the challenges of keeping up with evolving and often unpredictable customer demand, combined with the need for innovation speed leads to margins and profits being squeezed. Having a solid supplier quality strategy can save thousands of hours and dollars solving quality problems that could have been caught in the initial supplier on-boarding or inbound inspection, traceability and internal supplier audits. With over 70% of a typical aerospace or defense product being comprised of sourced parts, supply chain performance will make or break any manufacturer quickly if they aren’t managed to high performance.
A&D Manufacturers Bet Their Businesses Daily On Their Supply Chains
In the recent Deloitte 2015 Global Aerospace and Defense Industry Outlook (22 pp., no opt-in, PDF) just how unpredictable airline forecast variation becomes clear. The following figure from the study illustrates just how unpredictable A&D supply chains are. Anticipating demand and being able to stay synchronized with the many suppliers for complex aerospace and defense projects is key to staying profitable and competitive.
Staying profitable needs to start with a strong supplier quality management strategy. Projections from Deloitte related to defense revenue and operating margin show how just a slight change in revenues and operating efficiency can drag profits down. Protecting margins in slow growth markets needs to start with a strong supplier quality management strategy.
Seven Strategies For Improving Supplier Quality Management
Taking a strategic view and series of actions to drive up supplier quality needs to be the starting point. Moving beyond reacting and fire-fighting to driving greater supplier quality will make the difference between a project being delivered on time, under budget and delivering revenue. The following e-book provides seven lessons learned on how to turn supplier quality management into a strength for any complex manufacturer:
