How an aerospace or defence buyer shortlists a new component supplier

A sourcing engineer shortlists a new component supplier from three places: the plant's own vendor list, a recommendation from a tier-one or tier-two supplier, and people met at a buyer meet. The shop then has to pass four checks: can it make the part, prove it, keep making it, and deliver as said. A small shop gets onto the short list through records the buyer can read, not through a brochure. Put yourself at that desk: a bracket drawing has come down, the regular shop is booked for months, and the manager wants three names by Friday.

This is about the sales side only. Approval rules differ by buyer, part and customer, and they change, so your buyer or your adviser must tell you what applies to you.

Where do the three names come from?

A cold search is seldom the first step. In many plants the first source is the buyer's own vendor list, then a tier-one or tier-two supplier who has overflow work and recommends a shop it has seen. Next come people met at a supplier meet or exhibition, and last, a web search that names a process and a material. A shop that is on none of these has to create one of them. Being found by tier-one and tier-two suppliers deals with the search route, and the post on trade shows and buyer meets with the meeting route.

What is the buyer afraid of?

Not of paying too much. The fear is a part that fails inspection after months of work, a supplier who vanishes halfway through a run, and paperwork that cannot be produced when the buyer's own customer asks. A new supplier is a risk to be defended to a manager. Each question is a form of one of these fears.

The four checks, and what answers each

If a row has no answer, say so and say what you are doing about it. A gap you state is easier to forgive than one the buyer finds.

What traceability means to a small shop

It is the ability to say, for any part you made, which material lot it came from, which machine and operator made it, what was measured and where it went. A job card, a material certificate filed against the job number, a signed inspection sheet and a dispatch note, kept together, is what a buyer is likely to want to see before asking for more. Describe only what you run. If the job card lives on paper, say that. A buyer who visits and finds the records thinner than the pitch may end the shortlist there.

For example: a pump-parts shop in Coimbatore

Imagine, as an invented case, a ten-machine shop in Coimbatore that has made automotive and pump parts for years and now wants aerospace work. The owner emails a brochure to forty companies and hears nothing. It lists "aerospace quality" and fifteen machines, four of them still on order.

A narrower route works better. The owner picks four buyers whose parts match the shop's five-axis and turning capacity and finds the supplier development or sourcing contact for each. The note gives three part families the shop can make, the machines it actually has, the inspection equipment it holds and a sample inspection sheet from an existing customer, shared with permission. It says plainly that the shop holds no aerospace approvals yet and asks what each buyer would need to see first.

Two reply. One asks for a visit and one sends a list of requirements. Neither is an order, and meeting the list will cost the shop a new height gauge and months of record-keeping. But both are a conversation. The brochure failed because it claimed too much. The note worked because everything in it could be checked.

A one-page file to keep ready

• What you can make and what you cannot, with size and material limits
• A recent job's inspection and dispatch records, with the customer's name removed unless permitted
• The name of someone besides the owner who can answer technical questions on the visit
• Your approvals stated exactly: held, with scope and date, or "in progress" with the next step

The capability statement post shows what goes into one.

One buyer at a time, or not at all

Aerospace and defence buying moves slowly and leans on relationships. A mass mailing treats the whole field as one buyer, and it is not. Each firm has its own parts, its own existing suppliers and its own way of bringing in a new one. Choose a few firms, learn what they buy, and approach with something specific. Between enquiries, stay on the buyer's radar with real news only.

If you are a general engineering shop and have no plan to invest in inspection and records, this field is not for you, and that is a fair decision. Serving industrial buyers well beats chasing a market you are not set up for. See also how industrial buyers decide which unit gets the RFQ.

Pick four buyers and read their parts

Choose four firms whose parts you could realistically make, note the contact role at each, and test your own material against the four questions above. Fix the weakest row first, and write the one thing you will do about it this week. Makers weighing this whole field can read our aerospace and defence components sales and marketing page, and capability presentations is the related service. Rules for suppliers differ by body and change, so check with your own adviser or the relevant authority. If you want help preparing the approach, tell us what you need.