G&P helps one of the UK’s largest Aerospace engineering groups to improve supply chain capability

G&P helps one of the UK’s largest Aerospace engineering groups to improve supply chain capability

As part of a targeted strategy to tackle challenges across its European supply chain, one of the UK’s largest Aerospace engineering groups partnered with G&P Quality Management Ltd to provide outsourced intervention services at multiple key suppliers to its manufacturing divisions. In just a few months, the collaboration drove a 40% improvement in supplier delivery (versus plan) and a 70% reduction in arrears.

With demand increasing and production volumes accelerating, supply chain constraints began to introduce significant risks to programme delivery schedules. To mitigate these risks that could result in programme slips, missed production targets, customer disruption, lost revenue and a negative impact to brand reputation, a comprehensive tender process was undertaken to find a reliable supplier performance improvement solution.

Following multiple reviews, G&P was selected as one of the outsourced supplier intervention service partners. Having previously worked with the business to provide containment services, the customer OEM knew that G&P could hit the ground running and already had experience working in close collaboration with the business.

With the objective of providing a managed service to improve supplier performance, G&P’s highly skilled supply chain turnaround consultants were deployed on site at multiple key suppliers across the UK, France and Germany. Thanks to Chief Engineer and C-level experience within the group, it was possible to quickly and seamlessly develop and implement a robust work package.

This saw G&P deploy its Supplier Improvement (SI) framework at the manufacturing sites of each supplier. As a starting point, this included a diagnostic assessment to establish performance baselines, as well as analysis work to define key issues and primary causes. Alongside setting improvement targets, an improvement plan was created, detailing performance improvement workstreams.

From an operational perspective, the work package included sales, inventory and operations planning (SIOP), operations workflow, capacity uplift, utilisation uplift, operations management and KPI tracking. From a supply chain perspective, activities included expediting both raw materials and finished components, an order flow down review, value stream mapping, a supply chain risk assessment and unlocking raw material availability leading to significant OTIF (on time, in full) improvement.

Critical actions were also identified and implemented through organisational reviews and competency assessments, which resulted in a skills uplift by coaching and mentoring the existing workforce and recruiting for organisational gaps. Finally, work was undertaken to build supplier capability, as well as to implement a supplier transition roadmap and ultimately create a G&P exit strategy.

To govern the initiative, a project room was established on-site at each supplier, with daily reviews undertaken with stakeholders. G&P presented back to the VP-level of the customer OEM on a weekly basis, while a monthly review kept the SVP-level fully up to date with progress.

In just five months, G&P made a significant difference. Alongside improving individual supplier delivery performance by up to 40%, arrears had reduced by an average 70% across the board. Alongside implementing new ways of working, each supplier had benefited from revised operations management practices and innovative process engineering solutions.

With continued collaboration and continuous improvement activities taking place across multiple additional suppliers, the programme resulted in further improvements:

  • Process flow optimisation delivering c.£200k savings
  • Arrears reduced by 90% on priority parts
  • Arrears reduced by 70% overall
  • Supplier OTIF improved by 40%
  • Part turnaround lead time reduced by 50%

A result of the programme has enabled the OEM to increase output to meet customer demand thanks to an improved build schedules. Deploying G&P’s supplier turnaround capability has increased delivery output, minimised arrears, reduced risks in the supply chain and lowered the risk of programme slips, collectively ensuring that production targets can be seamlessly achieved.

Rupert Musgrove, UK managing director at G&P, commented: “With considerable experience across automotive and aerospace OEM manufacturing operations and supply chains, our team are ready to get under the skin of operations and deliver powerful solutions to improve supply chain performance. Indeed, by deploying turnaround engineers on site, we can work as part of a wider team to investigate challenges and implement robust solutions.

“By providing outsourced intervention services, we were able to increase supplier operational capacity, reduce supply chain risk and improve forward order cover. We embedded new ways of working, upskilled teams and raised the capability of key suppliers to achieve new levels of performance.”