Smooth supply as EMS flies high
11 September 2008
Mike Berridge reflects on the progress being made in SC21 – a program being driven by the aerospace industry to improve competitiveness throughout the supply chain.
21st Century Supply Chains (SC21) is a change programme designed by the Society of British Aerospace Companies (SBAC) to accelerate the competitiveness of the UK’s aerospace and defence industry by raising the performance of its supply chains. A rise in international competition, the weakness of the dollar and the challenges posed by the Defence Industrial Strategy (DIS), mean there have to be some rapid improvements made in the effectiveness of aerospace and defence supply chains. At the same time the industry must ensure that it delivers competitive solutions for customers while maintaining profitable business growth.
The lead for the programme comes from 16 prime contractors and the aerospace regional partners - known as the implementation working group – which has developed and sponsored the launch of the SC21 implementation plan, encompassing over 150 aerospace and defence businesses. The group includes General Dynamics UK and Augusta Westland, two key customers of AWS Electronics Group, one of the UK’s leading specialist Electronic Manufacturing Services (EMS) providers.
During the launch of SC21, businesses have been selected because they either service multiple key customers in the industry and/or provide strategic capabilities. As an SC21 signatory, AWS is committed to developing all aspects of its supply chain to ensure they remain competitive and able to deliver increased value to customers.
AWS signed up to the SC21 programme in May 2007. The seed was sown at the annual Northern Defence Industries (NDI) conference a couple of months earlier where AWS presented on the theme of continuous improvement with Sandy Wilson, President of General Dynamics UK. Also speaking was Russ Armitage, chairman of the SC21 programme. Subsequent discussions were enough to convince senior management personnel at AWS that the comprehensive approach outlined for SC21 had a real fit with the company’s current initiatives and its business strategy, and the programme was adopted immediately.
Back in 2006 the acquisition of several businesses prompted AWS Group CEO, Paul Deehan, to recognise that the opportunity to benchmark best practice across the group would give benefits to all stakeholders. Deehan’s thoughts and inspiration are a result of his experience of leading a number of change programmes in the automotive industry during the 1990s, while working for OEMs and major first tier companies where he was a customer of various SMEs – the reverse of his current role. In his automotive days he drove change down to SMEs. He learnt that successful SMEs were the ones that drive themselves - those who don’t sit back - and in particularly the ones who are pro-active in driving continuous improvement in operations across their own business and down into their own supply chain.
In August 2007 AWS achieved AS 9100 on top of its normal ISO accreditations for quality and environment and combined with the SC21 programme is pushing itself forward proactively. The group took significant steps during 2007 to integrate its internal continuous improvement (CI) initiative into the specific aerospace and defence supply chain development programme that SC21 represents.
SC21 recognition framework has bronze, silver and gold levels. AWS’s 12 months delivery performance to its sponsor, General Dynamics UK was above 99 per cent and quality was measured at 248 defects per million opportunities (DPMO). The company scored over 500 on its lean manufacturing and business excellence framework performance and the combined assessment means that AWS has been assessed as meriting a silver award. AWS has become the first company under SC21 to achieve this level – a truly significant achievement in under 12 months.
AWS Group sees SC21 as a differentiator. The programme is about creating a cultural shift using world class improvement tools. The message to SMEs is do not sit back and wait, otherwise you will wait for ever.
General Dynamics UK says it is encouraging that one of the first companies to receive an SC21 award was part of its implementation working group. In particular, Byron Clarke, who is the company’s champion for SC21 delivery commented: “Our own SC21 programme is gaining real momentum now and I particularly enjoy this phase where we are visiting and supporting our suppliers with their own change programmes. We had already been working proactively with AWS as part of our own supplier development programme. The assessment with AWS was one of many we have started in the last few months. The openness and the transparency that comes from the diagnostic means we have a clear framework in which to measure progress, it’s a win-win scenario; we all benefit from this initiative. In the AWS case the work we had already started with them migrated to SC21 and with our help they adapted very quickly to the SC21 process.”
SC21 Project Manager Phil Curnock said: “The SC21 change programme is now really beginning to take effect. We spent a lot of working with the primes to get a common set of processes and metrics in place. The silver award to AWS Electronics means this is now working at the operational level. This is a tremendous achievement and should now act as an inspiration to the hundreds of companies who are part of the SC21 programme.”
Mike Berridge is Director of Business Improvement at AWS Group.
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