Europe’s Aero Excellence Supply-chain Initiative Expands

Spain is to become the fourth country to join the European Aero Excellence International initiative—a multi-national program intended to help suppliers self-assess their own maturity levels and work towards building greater operational resilience. Aero Excellence officials announced the move at the recent Hamburg Aviation Forum.

The scheme builds on a program first launched by the French Aerospace Industries Association (GIFAS) in 2023 and was co-developed with other national aerospace and defense associations. These include Germany’s BDLI and the UK’s ADS group. A representative from each trade association sits on Aero Excellence’s board, along with three national industry representatives.

Under the Aero Excellence plan, participating companies (categorized across five areas) are supported to self-assess their own supply chain maturity level before an official assessment is made. Three levels of maturity (bronze, silver and gold) are then awarded by Aero Excellence assessors, a validation recognised industry-wide and intended to negate lengthy separate and repetitive individual assessments.

According to Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury,  Aero Excellence’s purpose is to establish a universally recognised “maturity benchmark” designed to “strengthen the operational, environmental and cyber excellence of our industries in order to meet future challenges and improve competitiveness.”

Progress To Date

Aero Excellence has almost 700 assessors from 23 companies among its ranks, with more than 440 supplier sites involved worldwide. Around 140 assessments have been conducted so far, with more than 40 companies already qualifying for the bronze award. Representatives from Collins, Airbus, and Pratt & Whitney met recently to explore becoming future assessors.

Using 15 key metrics, companies must score a minimum of 90% for performance and 90% for maturity. One French and one British company have also each qualified for silver level. Aero Excellence describes ongoing participation as an opportunity for continuous re-evaluation and improvement.

“We want to create a universal operating system like Toyota did 70 years ago with their Toyota Production System,” explained Liebherr Aerospace managing director Gerd Heinzelmann. He also believes that “moving from a customer to a supplier ownership” will better help customers assess a common supplier, with the evaluation process more akin to internal coaching than an arbitrary assessment.

Pierre Perdoux, Aero Excellence’s chairman and Airbus senior vice president of supply chain and logistics, explained that “a big weakness of [the supply chain profession] is our ability to manage the sub tier” of suppliers, highlighting: “68% of my problem in Airbus is coming from sub tiers, half of which we have no contractual relationship with,” he explained. “It’s a matter of consistency for the whole value chain to not only speak the same language but also act in a very organized way.”