From assessment to action: How Aero Excellence is helping aerospace suppliers prepare for ramp-up
7 min read
For aerospace, defence and space suppliers, proving maturity is only part of the challenge. The bigger question is what happens next.
As production rates increase and customers look for greater resilience across their supply chains, companies are under pressure to show not only that they meet today’s requirements, but that they are ready for future growth.
That readiness depends on more than capacity alone. Suppliers need mature processes, clear improvement priorities and the ability to scale consistently as demand rises across the global aerospace ecosystem.
Aero Excellence is designed to support that shift by giving suppliers a structured way to assess maturity, identify gaps and turn findings into measurable improvement.
The programme provides a common framework for companies across the aerospace, defence and space sectors, looking at operational excellence, environmental sustainability and cyber security. It is built around a maturity model that recognises progress through Bronze, Silver and Gold levels.
For participating companies, the value is not simply in achieving a label. The biggest impact comes when the assessment becomes a roadmap for change, helping suppliers understand where to focus attention as they prepare for higher output.
A baseline beyond compliance
For Roxel Group, a specialist in tactical propulsion systems, Aero Excellence offered a way to look beyond existing certification requirements and build a more rounded picture of industrial maturity.
“The main impact Roxel were looking to achieve was to give us a strong baseline using the tools that are applied across multiple industries, also covering the areas that our EN9100 assessment doesn’t cover or didn’t cover,” said Gary Dixon, Head of Procurement at Roxel.
A clear baseline gives suppliers the evidence they need to prioritise improvement, rather than relying on assumptions about where the business is strongest or most exposed.
Dixon said the recent assessment identified “lots of areas of strength” within Roxel, which was reassuring for the company. But it also highlighted areas for improvement that were both realistic and manageable.
“Although improvements were identified, some of them were due to site constraints, but some of them were due to the fact that we work in the defence industry and we haven’t looked outside before,” Dixon said. “The Aero Excellence tool actually allowed us to do that.”
For suppliers operating in highly regulated sectors, improvement programmes only work if they reflect the real constraints of the business. Dixon said the Aero Excellence process was flexible and adaptable enough to produce meaningful outputs, rather than generic recommendations.
That matters for rate ramp-up because suppliers need improvement plans that can be implemented in practice. A maturity assessment only creates value if it helps companies identify the operational changes that will strengthen delivery, resilience and readiness for growth.
Turning assessment findings into investment decisions
For Roxel, Aero Excellence has already influenced how the company thinks about future investment.
Dixon said some of the improvements identified through the assessment have been incorporated into a multi-million-pound development programme due to begin shortly. Rather than simply transferring existing processes and practices into new manufacturing buildings, the company is using the assessment output to shape how that investment is optimised.
“Using the Aero Excellence programme assessment output has helped Roxel ensure that we’re working on improvements identified, so the investment in the site is optimised as opposed to simply transferring processes and practices to the new manufacturing buildings,” Dixon said.
This is an example of how Aero Excellence can move from assessment to action. Not only is it a way of demonstrating maturity to customers, but it can also help companies decide where to focus investment, which processes to strengthen and how to make growth more sustainable.
For an industry trying to increase output, that link between assessment and investment is critical. New capacity only supports ramp-up if it is matched by stronger processes, better governance and a clear understanding of where operational risk needs to be reduced.
“It’s actually helped Roxel customers, including MBDA, to feel assured that the drive for operational excellence is being addressed at Roxel,” Dixon added. “The Aero Excellence programme is the main driver behind this.”
Creating transparency and measurable progress
Novelis is a major manufacturer of aluminium rolling products and a strategic partner to the global aerospace and space industries. For the company, Aero Excellence has been valuable because it provides a structured, objective way to understand maturity and improvement potential.
Matthias Miermeister, Director, Technical Development Engineering, Global Aerospace and Industrial Plate at Novelis, said the company saw Aero Excellence as more than a conventional audit.
“We noticed that it is a very structured and comprehensive process,” he said. “Not like a standard audit, which is only about achieving compliance, but it is about building operational excellence.”
Miermeister said the Bronze, Silver and Gold maturity model helped Novelis establish an objective view of where it stood against an industry standard. That was particularly relevant, he said, because the company is operating in a dynamic environment, with pressure to build supply chain resilience, manage growth and prepare for the Airbus ramp-up.
“The assessment has, above all, brought one thing: it has created transparency,” Miermeister said. “We now have a clear, fact-based view of our maturity.”
That transparency has helped Novelis identify strengths, but also the gaps that need to be closed. Miermeister said the structured, KPI-based approach allowed the company to establish governance that is objective and understandable.
For larger suppliers operating in global aerospace supply chains, that kind of visibility is increasingly important. As customers push for higher rates, suppliers need to know whether their processes are robust enough to support sustained growth, not just short-term output.
Aero Excellence has also encouraged cross-functional working. Rather than addressing issues in isolation, Novelis has been able to bring teams together, agree on priorities and build them into a plan of action.
“We were able to identify priorities together and then work on them as part of a roadmap, and not just repair at certain points where we identified weaknesses,” Miermeister said.
Readiness for growth
While each company is using Aero Excellence differently, the same theme runs through their experiences: maturity needs to be visible, measurable and capable of supporting growth.
At Roxel, the programme has helped turn assessment findings into practical improvement priorities linked to site investment. At Novelis, it has created transparency, stronger governance and a clearer roadmap for operational excellence as the business prepares for growth.
This sort of common assessment framework can help suppliers move beyond proving performance at a point in time and towards a more collaborative model of improvement, where customers and suppliers can work from the same evidence and focus on the areas that will have the greatest impact.
The result is a programme that is not simply about assessment. It is about giving companies a structured way to improve, scale and prepare for what customers will need next.
In an industry where growth depends on the strength of every link in the supply chain, that shift from assessment to action could be the difference between identifying pressure points and being ready for them.
Explore the new Aero Excellence website
Aero Excellence has launched a new website designed to support its growing global community of aerospace, defence and space organisations.
Launched ahead of Farnborough International Airshow 2026, the website provides a clearer overview of the programme, its assessment framework and international governance. Visitors can also explore the latest Aero Excellence news, company testimonials and the benefits available to suppliers and OEMs committed to operational excellence.
“Over the last two years, we’ve gained valuable insight from organisations using Aero Excellence around the world,” said Pierre Loos, who led the website redevelopment. “That feedback has helped evolve the website to be better aligned to the needs of our growing community in support of their next phase of growth.”
Whether you are a supplier looking to accelerate your continuous improvement journey, an OEM seeking a common operational excellence standard or simply interested in the initiative, the new website provides a useful starting point.
