Boost your competitiveness
Improve quality and delivery performance for growth
Prime customers demand high performance, proven capability, and consistent delivery. For your business, staying competitive means standing out on quality, reliability, and continuous improvement.
The Supply Chain Solutions Framework helps you assess your current performance, identify areas for improvement, and take clear, structured steps to meet and exceed industry standards.
Why competitiveness matters
In the aerospace, defence, security and space sectors, competitiveness is critical to winning—and keeping—business.
But, competitiveness isn’t just about where you are today—it’s about how you improve over time. Embedding continuous improvement across your business helps reduce waste, solve problems faster, and increase value for your customers. It’s how you stay agile, adaptable, and ready for new opportunities.
Support to strengthen your competitive edge
Whether you’re starting your improvement journey or building on solid foundations, our Competitiveness programmes are designed to support you:
- Aero Excellence™ – A new international model, led by Airbus, Safran and other major OEMs, designed to address supply chain challenges at a global level. It helps you develop capability, demonstrate maturity, and drive sustainable growth.
- SC21 – An award-winning industry programme focused on improving quality, delivery, and business excellence. Backed by major primes and widely trusted across the supply chain.
What others are saying:
“The SC21 programme gave us real clarity on where to focus and how to improve. It’s helped us secure new contracts and build stronger relationships with prime customers.”
— Managing Director, SME Aerospace Supplier
“With Aero Excellence, we found a programme that matched our size and ambitions. It’s flexible, relevant, and has supported us in building capability for long-term growth.”
— Operations Lead, Precision Engineering Business.
Quality – a key differentiator
Quality goes beyond standards – it provides a competitive edge. Digital transformation is enabling Quality decisions to be made that fuel innovation and sustainable practices. It’s part of the continuous improvement journey for companies.
The awarding of CQI International Outstanding Achievement Award for the SC21 programme from the Chartered Quality Institute (CQI) acknowledges SC21’s role in transforming Quality for SMEs working in the aerospace and defence supply chains; increasing competitiveness by achieving excellence in quality and delivery performance every time.
Complementing Quality (AS9100) and security (ISO27001)
SC21 and Aero Excellence™ are not formally audited certifications but offer an assessment of a supplier’s operational maturity and performance.
Both programmes assess the strengths and weaknesses of a company across a broad range of issues, and take into account existing formal certifications such as AS9100 and ISO27001. They support companies on their journey to improvement and formal assessment of their industrial maturity and performance against a recognised international standard.
Not just for manufacturers
Service providers, logistics companies, and design organisations across the aerospace and defence sectors can benefit from the structure of an improvement programme.
Whether you’re managing complex projects, moving critical parts, or providing specialist services, our SC21 programme helps you demonstrate performance, improve efficiency, and build trust with customers.
The framework adapts to your business type, providing clear metrics, a shared language, and a roadmap to long-term capability.
