Dear SEA Member - November 3, 2012

C-O-L-L-A-B-O-R-A-T-I-O-N
“Collaboration is working together to achieve a goal. It is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together to realize shared goals. This is more than the intersection of common goals seen in co-operative ventures, but a deep, collective, determination to reach an identical objective.” (Wikipedia)

SEA suppliers are committed to accelerating supply chain performance. SEA suppliers believe that a supply chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link, therefore we must collaborate and share best practices to speed up the learning process and accelerate the improvement of the supply chain.

In this report I would like to focus on the importance of collaboration and how SEA is working to support collaboration that leads to effective partnerships and increased competitiveness.

My comments will fall into these four areas:

• Industry Imperatives
• Building Partnerships
• Sharing Best Practices
• Promoting SEA Suppliers

Industry Imperatives
What’s driving us to become more competitive? We have identified four distinct customer imperatives:

1. Moving production lines demand new methods and new performance standards throughout the supply chain.
2. New customer methods require 100% on-time and zero PPM quality performance.
3. OEMs are moving from horizontal to vertical supply chains resulting in changes to our customer relationships.
4. Customers are consolidating supply chains resulting in a need for suppliers to take on more value-added and next higher assembly operations requiring better financing and stronger risk profiles.

All in all, these imperatives require a significantly different strategic response from the supply chain.

Building Partnerships
One of the strategic responses required is a better effort at creating supply chain partnerships. Suppliers who combine forces to create better supply chain performance have a competitive advantage over suppliers who do not. SEA suppliers are assigning a senior manager to perform in the role of supply chain director with responsibilities to sponsor improvement projects that make measureable improvements in overall performance. Supply chain partnerships are supported by the SEA Roadmap and provide ongoing executive attention to this important competitive advantage.

SEA facilitates relationships by conducting conferences where suppliers and customers can meet and collaborate. SEA also arranges Best Practice Site Visits throughout the year to provide another opportunity for suppliers and customers to meet and collaborate.

Sharing Best Practices
It imperative that we band together as a supply chain and promote and share best practices capable of improving the entire supply chain. The aerospace supply chain has capacity for any performing supplier and wasting energy in competition detracts from our overall viability as an American Aerospace Industry.

Best Practice Site Visits – these visits to supplier sites help to highlight best practices by showcasing various areas of improved performance, process maturity, and lean implementation. Suppliers and customers are invited. Experience shows that most site visits are attended mainly on a regional basis to minimize travel for suppliers.

Process Owner Forums – by assigning process owners throughout the business as prescribed by the SEA Roadmap, suppliers can participate in online forums where best practices are shared and discussed without leaving your conference room. Participants rate these forums as extremely valuable in conveying best practices in a way that can be used and implemented in each supplier company.

Virtual Site Tours – another feature beginning in 2012 is the Virtual Site Tour. As travel becomes more limited for ourselves and our customers, these site tours do an excellent job of simulating a visit to the actual supplier site.

Mentoring – SEA Supplier Advisory Council members provide hands-on mentoring to SEA members including coaching at the executive and management levels. Process Owners can form relationships that allow the more experienced to assist the newer members.

Conferences – SEA conferences devote sessions to the sharing of best practice presentations and roundtables.

Promoting SEA Suppliers
In a consolidating industry with new performance and partnering requirements, traditional business development methods won’t work. It just isn’t a priority in today’s market to add new suppliers unless a current supplier appears to have problems. Raising the bar across the industry creates a problem for every incumbent supplier.

SEA’s plan for creating this condition is multi-faceted but mainly consists of supplying the industry with plenty of opportunities to observe SEA leadership in action.

• Site Visits including Virtual Site Visits
• Conferences – showcases supplier improvements
• Social Media – LinkedIN, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, VCASMO, VIMEO – we concentrate on showcasing examples of SEA leadership throughout the industry in the most pervasive campaign with the largest number of appearances and outlets.

This is no “business as usual” in aerospace and defense anymore. Too many forces are pulling the market in too many directions. Neither is a wait-and-see strategy going to be adequate. What we need is an affirmative plan that utilizes the joint and shared resources of all.

In the old aerospace and defense we just stayed low, did our work – molding, machining, assembly, fabrication, special processing, etc. – and a certain amount of business would come to us as long as we did our job. We heard stories about what happened in automotive from the 1980s to the 2000s but we thought that was an industry too different – not like us at all. But now it appears more like us – at least where our customers want to take it.

We welcome your feedback on how we can improve our collaboration strategies as well as how SEA supports those strategies.

michael@seaonline.org

ARCHIVE OF PAST REPORTS

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