Aeronautics and Defence consulting for performance and resilience
Regaining speed without losing control: our solutions to meet the challenges of the Aerospace & Defence industry.
Cutting-edge technologies, small production runs, production ramp-up, international competition, and stringent quality and service requirements: the aerospace and defence sectors are undergoing profound transformation.
Sector challenges
Accelerating production rates
- Major aerospace companies are gradually returning to activity levels comparable to their pre-COVID peak, while order books continue to grow year after year.
- The sector’s momentum is driven by the Airbus-Boeing duopoly, which sets the pace for the entire production chain. This creates strong dependence on engine manufacturers and Tier 1 suppliers, which in turn rely on a large number of increasingly smaller suppliers and subcontractors.
- The aerospace industrial ecosystem is complex and fragmented, involving numerous non-linear customer-supplier relationships.
- Meanwhile, the defence sector is under substantial pressure to meet rapidly growing demand for aircraft, equipment and spare parts, both in delivery volumes and fleet-renewal needs.
Reducing constraints and optimising supply chains
- The aerospace value chain’s “diamond structure” conceals dependence on key players including forging and foundry companies, non-destructive testing providers and surface-treatment specialists who are increasingly struggling to source raw materials and electronic components
- Quality, safety and traceability triad increasingly restrictive, but ensuring operational excellence
- The value of intermediate inventories and work in progress puts pressure on smaller companies’ working capital requirements and makes production management more complex
- Global conflicts are driving increasing demand for military and defence equipment, including aircraft and other assets
- Intensifying global competition, the emergence of new aircraft manufacturers and globalised flows require industry players to develop innovative solutions to remain competitive, particularly against new private-sector entrants with strong R&D capabilities
- Human capabilities are in high demand and therefore increasingly scarce, leading to skilled-labour shortages in certain roles
Managing high-value products
- Product portfolios comprise a large number of references with complex bills of materials, while spare-parts requirements can extend over several decades, particularly for MRO and in-service support
- Cycle times are long, ranging from a few weeks to several years, with increasingly demanding requirements for quality, safety and traceability
- Economies of scale and multi-sourcing opportunities are limited by small—and sometimes very small—production runs
Your challenges
and our solutions
Designing end-to-end supply chains and strengthening collaboration
Establish end-to-end governance to create visibility across every link in the value chain and make relevant decisions at the right planning horizons.
Absorb upstream and downstream variability by optimising MRP and DDMRP, levelling workloads, and managing the implementation of tactical and strategic decisions.
Secure suppliers by ensuring consistency in transmitted signals and fostering collaboration across the chain to provide relevant forecasts and production plans, while anticipating needs for strategic materials and equipment, such as steel and sheet metal.
Equip supply chain processes, from solution selection to implementation support, including APS, ERP, MES and CMMS solutions.
Adapt flow management and inventory policies to the target service levels, including pull or push flows, decoupling points and postponement strategies.
Anticipate shortages and develop production-acceleration plans.
Building crisis-resilient supply chains
- Adaptation to demand and customer variability and uncertainty.
- Implementation of agile, autonomous, and flexible teams to accelerate flows.
- Preparing organizations for future crises: risk management, ensuring business and service continuity, and implementing Business Continuity Plans (BCPs).
Accelerating product and service innovation
- Accelerating business transformation and the introduction of new products and services as a competitive advantage, requiring innovation consulting.
- Industry and Supply Chain 4.0: leveraging the principles and tools of digital continuity and end-to-end collaboration to enhance operational performance.
- Data-driven management and improved signal reliability to better assess the impact of disruptions across the entire Bill of Materials (BOM), identify appropriate solutions, optimize flow management, and enable simulation.
Improving industrial and logistics competitiveness
- Preparing for the future and adapting strategic capabilities to support growth (logistics and industrial master plans, operations mechanization).
- Outsourcing industrial activities (3PL, production offloading).
- Improving the responsiveness and flexibility of industrial operations (reducing cycle times and frozen horizons, adjusting batch sizes, etc.).
- Implementing enhanced competitiveness action plans and operational excellence initiatives.
- Digital management of teams and performance.
Optimising maintenance of aerospace equipment
- Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), differentiated forecasting management, configuration management, and the management of product launches and end-of-life phases.
- Traceability of equipment fleet utilization in operation, optimization of asset potential, resource efficiency, and circularity.
- Optimization of MRO / MCO flows and reduction of equipment downtime.
- Optimization of spare parts and repair components management (decoupling strategies, performance indicators, etc.).
Reinforcing operational teams, programme management and project management
- Remplacementdes absences de managers, renfort opérationneld’équipe projet ou en sous effectifs ou pic d’activité (planificateur, ingénieur lean, méthodes, contrôleur de gestion, gestionnaire de crise…).
- Support à la gestion de crise, management de transition.
Among our
references
Industrial Planification
Supply chain transformation
A leading industrial and technology company
S&OP transformation and logistics mechanisation
Logistics Network Design
Use Case Aeronautics
Industrial Planification
Our involvement
- Demand management: reception, analysis and completion of the customer demand signal over a period of up to 36 months
- Capacity management: development of the capacity management model in the SAP IBP tool
The results
Forecasting model for customer signal completeness construction and Unit and End-To-End tests completion
Capacity management model in SAP IBP construction and Unit and End-To-End tests completion
Support in building the new Demand Planning & S&Op organisation: governance, RACI, routines, business cards, deployment plan, etc.
Change management to help organisations become more mature so that the new processes and tools can be rolled out: diagnostics, workshops, action plan, etc.
Use Case Defence
Logistics Master Plan
Our involvement
Needs analysis and projection of floor space needed over 15 years
Definition of a target operational organisation in terms of processes, flows and buildings
The results
Establishment of model for stock level evolution in the future by storage space and by constraints
Validation the site management board of an outsourced logistics organisation with a 3PL taking out a lease on 11,000m² and the construction of a new 9,000m² building on site
A Project ? Contact us
Patrner
Nicolas brings more than 20 years of experience across a wide range of industries, including aerospace and defence. As both a team manager and a consultant, he has led or contributed to numerous transformation projects, including team restructuring, ERP implementation, strategic planning, change management, and technical procurement and supply chain initiatives.
In operational leadership roles, he has designed multi-horizon planning models, including S&OP, which he now implements for major organisations alongside APS deployment projects. His aerospace background enables him to understand the challenges faced by both operational teams and senior management, while his expertise in change management allows him to support transformations at the appropriate level.