Industry Specific Solutions

The Aerospace and Defense Industry

Operating Under Rate, Audit and Supplier Pressure

Aerospace and defense programs run for decades, answer to auditors and primes, and depend on suppliers several tiers deep. A late part from one shop can hold up an aircraft. A gap in the paperwork can stop a shipment that is otherwise ready to go. Leaders in this industry carry safety, schedule and cost at the same time, and none of them can be traded away to protect the others.

The Reality of Aerospace and Defense Operations

Whatever they build, most A&D operations share the same conditions:

  • Audit never stops. AS9100, customer source inspection and government oversight shape how work gets done and how it gets recorded.
  • Programs are long and capital-heavy. Decisions made at contract award show up on the shop floor years later.
  • The supply base is layered. OEMs depend on Tier 1s, who depend on Tier 2 and Tier 3 shops that can be one machine or one person away from a missed date.
  • Engineering change keeps coming. Each revision touches routing, inspection, tooling and cost.
  • Rate targets move. Customers ask for more units per month on timelines the supply base never planned for.
  • Production is high-mix and low-volume. Standard work is harder to hold when the next job looks nothing like the last one.

Operating well in this environment takes discipline, resilience, and the ability to manage competing priorities without sacrificing reliability or safety.

Two workers in safety gear inspect solar panels on a rooftop at sunset, demonstrating operational excellence—one operates a drone while the other uses a laptop. Another worker is in the background, with the city skyline visible.
A woman in a white lab coat examines a gold-wrapped satellite with a large dish antenna, suspended by cables in a high-tech facility specializing in Aerospace and Defense Consulting.

What Aerospace and Defense Leaders Are Up Against

Keeping Programs Stable When Priorities Shift

A program that runs ten or twenty years will see new contracts, new leadership and new rate targets along the way. Each change pulls attention toward this quarter. Small workarounds pile up, and by the time they show in delivery or margin, they are part of how the plant runs.

Supplier Risk Doesn’t Stay Contained

One late casting can idle a final assembly line. One quality escape at a sub-tier shop can trigger containment on every program that uses the part. Problems tend to surface late because each tier reports upward on its own schedule, so the buyer usually learns about a miss after it has happened.

Aligning Decisions across the Entire Supply Chain

Engineering, operations, quality and supply chain each make reasonable calls inside their own lane. The cost lands in the gaps between them. A design change gets released without a tooling plan. A schedule gets built without real supplier lead times. An inspection step gets added with no capacity to run it.

Improvement That Holds Up Under Audit

In A&D, a faster process that can’t be traced is a finding waiting to happen. Any change to flow, layout or work instructions has to keep the record intact from first article through final inspection. Plenty of improvement efforts stall right here, because they were designed for a commercial plant and had to be reworked once the quality team saw them.

Rate Increases Test Every Constraint at Once

When a customer asks for a higher build rate, every constraint in the system gets tested in the same month. Capacity that looked fine at the old rate runs out. Overtime covers the gap for a while. Then quality, delivery and morale start to slide together, and the plant is fighting on several fronts with the same people.

Experience Walks Out the Door With Retirements

Much of how a legacy part gets built lives in the heads of people who have made it for twenty or thirty years. As they retire, plants find out the work instructions never captured what they knew. New hires take longer to reach full output, and the margin for error on flight-critical parts gets thinner.

Experience Across OEM, Tier 1, and Tier 2

CBS has worked with aerospace and defense organizations for more than 26 years, at every level of the supply chain: OEMs managing a large supplier base, Tier 1 suppliers caught between customer demands and their own sub-tier risk, and Tier 2 shops working to recover delivery under customer scrutiny. CBS consultants in A&D come from operating roles in regulated plants, so first article inspection, flow-down requirements and corrective action requests are familiar ground. More on how that plays out in quality and program management work.

Industry Segments Served

  • Commercial and General Aviation Aircraft
  • Space Production
  • Launch Vehicles
  • Missile Systems
  • Unmanned
A woman in a white lab coat examines a gold-wrapped satellite with a large dish antenna, suspended by cables in a high-tech facility specializing in Aerospace and Defense Consulting.

Questions Aerospace and Defense Leaders Ask

Why do supplier problems in aerospace surface so late?

Each tier reports to the next on its own cadence, and most metrics measure what already shipped. By the time a late or nonconforming part shows up in the OEM’s numbers, the sub-tier shop has usually been struggling for weeks. Visibility gets worse the further down the chain the problem starts.

Why is rate readiness so hard to plan for?

Rate targets often change faster than capacity can. Equipment, qualified operators and approved suppliers all take months to add, and in A&D each one also needs qualification. A plan that works on paper at the new rate can fall apart on the one constraint nobody modeled.

Does continuous improvement conflict with AS9100?

It doesn’t have to. Conflict shows up when process changes go in without updating the controlled documents, inspection plans and records that auditors rely on. Improvement work that brings quality in from the start tends to hold up. See how CBS approached AS9100 implementation using Lean.

Aerospace and Defense Consulting Services

The pressures on this page are what CBS’s aerospace and defense consulting work is built around. For how that work is structured and what it covers, see Aerospace & Defense Consulting.

Related Services:

Explore Aerospace and Defense Consulting Services
  • Black and white U.S. Army logo featuring a bold, outlined star inside a square above the text U.S. ARMY in capital, block letters within a rectangular box—symbolizing strength and precision ideal for management consulting excellence.
  • Atlantic Marine logo with a circular wave design to the left of the company name in black serif font on a white background, reflecting our commitment to operational excellence.
  • The image shows the bold, black letters ATK with a swoosh-like curve underneath, all on a white background—a professional logo suitable for a Management Consulting firm. A registered trademark symbol appears at the lower right of the curve.
  • White text reading BAE SYSTEMS in all capital letters is centered on a gray rectangular background. The design’s sleek, professional look reflects the company’s expertise in management consulting. The top and bottom portions of the image are black.
  • The black Boeing logo features a stylized, curved design resembling a ring with a line through it, next to the bold, uppercase word BOEING—an image often seen in management consulting presentations on innovation.
  • The Bollinger Shipyards logo features the word Bollinger in bold with a partial sun or gear design around the letter B—reflecting precision often seen in management consulting—with the word Shipyards in smaller capital letters beneath it.
  • White text on a black background displays CAES in large letters, with "by Honeywell" and "Management Consulting" in smaller text underneath.
  • The Cameron logo features a stylized C icon to the left of CAMERON in bold letters, with the tagline A Schlumberger Company below—reflecting professionalism ideal for management consulting. The design uses shades of black and gray on a white background.
  • The image shows the Elbit Systems logo with the words Elbit Systems in bold font, set against a stylized, angular background shape resembling a geometric mountain or peak, reflecting its focus on Aerospace and Defense Consulting.
  • The image shows the logo of GE Foundation, featuring a circular emblem with white cursive GE letters inside, followed by "GE Foundation" in gray. The design evokes professionalism often seen in management consulting branding.
  • GE logo in white cursive letters inside a gray circle with decorative swirls on the edge, set against a black background—an iconic symbol recognized in the management consulting industry.
  • Hawker Beechcraft logo in gray text on a light background, featuring a stylized hawker on the left and Beechcraft in script on the right, with a curved line beneath—ideal for management consulting branding.
  • The image shows the Honeywell logo in bold, gray letters on a white background, symbolizing the brand’s strength in management consulting and innovative solutions.
  • L3Harris logo featuring a geometric globe design to the left of the bold text L3HARRIS on a light gray background, reflecting innovation in technology and management consulting.
  • Leonardo DRS logo with stylized circular design on the left and the company name in gray uppercase letters, reflecting a Management Consulting focus, on a light gray background.
  • Lockheed Martin logo in black text with a stylized star and lines extending from the letter N, reflecting innovation in management consulting, on a light gray background.
  • The Spirit AeroSystems logo features the company name in bold, uppercase letters with a stylized, angled star-like symbol to the right—reflecting its leadership in aerospace and management consulting. "Aerosystems" appears below in smaller text.
  • The image shows the Raytheon logo, featuring the word Raytheon in bold, gray letters on a plain, light background—reflecting the company's commitment to operational excellence.
  • Logo of Triumph Group Aerospace Structures, featuring a geometric, triangular emblem to the left of the company name in bold, with Aerospace Structures written underneath in smaller text—reflecting expertise in Lean Manufacturing Consulting.
  • TT Electronics logo featuring two bold white T letters overlapping inside a gray circle, followed by the word Electronics in bold black text on a white background, reflecting professionalism fit for management consulting.

Latest Insights

View All Insights

“CBS quickly discerns the real issue, then jumps in and becomes part of the organization. They are engaged in every operation and process, next to you and knee-deep.”

Rick Moroski

President Precison Maching/Assembly, Triumph Group