Supply Chain: From Complexity to Partnership

Source: Alenia Aeronautica

Alenia Aeronautica has favoured the establishment and development of an industrial network especially in Campania, Puglia and Piemonte.

These external companies have contributed to our reaching production excellency, by developing indispensable technology and product expertise to guarantee a competitive product capable of meeting the desired quality standards. Our Supply Chain developed originally from a technology-oriented driver: vendors first developed specific expertise about the product in such areas as mechanics, metal plates, assembly and - recently - composites. Their development focused on production capability and efficacy factors rather than on efficiency and technology innovation factors, conditions that need to be guaranteed in such a quickly developing market as the aeronautic one.

Today, our Supply Chain is composed of about 50 sub-vendors of parts or structural assemblies with various technology expertise. This breakdown into segments was caused mostly by a layering of the work package assignment process made on the basis of each vendor's technology capabilities. However, the distribution of work packages among such a wide base of vendors brings certain problems like, for example, complexity of logistic and passthrough flows, part traceability, pressure on product costs, a huge amount of vendor and production management activities and infeed efficacy. Now the scenario has changed radically, and vendors are converting the available technology skills so as to assure integration of the production process. This scenario offers more opportunities to redesign the Supply Chain into a less limited one. At the same time, vendors have also focused on improving competitiveness, a necessary factor to strengthen their market position and maximise their production efficiency.

For the time being, the Supply Chain is strategic in order to reach the objectives set by the market and we need to guarantee full control of the procurement process and of each of its components. The more so,we need to change the relational Supply Chain pattern based on the readiness to react to emergencies, into a new partnership pattern where vendors do not merely respond to business inputs but are seen as true links in the production chain, as resources to rely on in order to reach our objectives and win the challenges posed by the market.

Riccardo Gabellieri

Acquisti e Gestione Forniture

Responsabile Supply Chain