Service Provider Risk Mitigation in Aeronautics Supply Chains

To improve good project outcomes, increasing attention has been paid for many years to building a successful partnership between client and provider in delivering outsourcing services. However, studies on the consideration of service provider selection in aeronautics considering its specific constraints are lacking. More generally, among the various selection criteria for suitable providers, risk mitigation criteria are among the most important driving forces, but they are also less studied. This paper proposes a new methodology with a framework using qualitative process modelling and logical representation methods to provide suitable elements for managing the quality of service providers in the aeronautics context. The approach uses the analysed information and the capitalised knowledge of practical experience to deploy the procedures helpful in carrying out all necessary actions for continuous improvement. The application context concerns the provider control in the quality department of a leading provider of significant aeronautical manufacturers. The applied methodology enables a summary of the services undertaken by the research department of risk management, integrating both the characteristics of the solicited engineering companies and the target service. As a result, we established performance indicators for a concrete vision of the benefits an engineering company provides while respecting the constraints imposed by aeronautical standards. This study provides a methodology that can be of direct interest to several actors in the aeronautical field (e.g. quality departments, research departments, purchasing departments, project managers, quality managers, and buyers of engineering services) for building or improving their processes for risk mitigation in the selection of services providers. More generally, similar entities can rely on the proposed approach in other fields characterised by complex supply chains (e.g. automotive manufacturing, healthcare manufacturing, chemical manufacturing, and technology manufacturing).