The aircraft may have taken centre stage, but behind everyonThe aircraft may have taken centre stage, but behind every one of them is a supply chain under pressure to perform. Aerospace and defence supply chains are held to a standard that most industries never have to meet and the margins for error are tiny. The consequences of supplier failure can be contractual, operational, and in some cases safety-critical, yet a significant number of manufacturers in this sector are still managing key parts of their supply chain through spreadsheets, email chains, and systems that weren't built for this level of complexity.

Across the week, one theme continuously came up in conversation: how do manufacturers scale without adding complexity?

With demand growing, there are pressures on strengthening the processes that connect suppliers, systems and teams so delivery, quality, compliance and supplier performance can keep pace.

Aerospace has a supply chain problem hiding behind a demand opportunity

The aerospace industry doesn't appear to have a shortage of demand with Boeing’s 737 MAX backlog of more than 4,000 aircraft taking existing orders into the 2030s and Airbus’ reported 821 net commercial aircraft orders in the first half of 2026, taking its commercial aircraft backlog to a record 9,222 aircraft at the end of June. The challenge appears to be how to increase production while maintaining quality, delivery performance and control across an enormous network of suppliers. And that is where the conversations at Farnborough became particularly interesting.

The commercial aerospace supply chain depends on thousands of companies, from major Tier 1 systems suppliers through to highly specialised Tier 2, Tier 3 and Tier 4 manufacturers. A delay in a small component has the potential to hold up a much larger assembly, and any change in forecast or production rate can ripple through the entire network. That complexity becomes harder to manage at precisely the moment when OEMs need their supply chains to move faster.

A production increase at an OEM means thousands of suppliers need to understand what is changing, confirm their capacity, manage commitments, maintain quality and respond quickly when something moves off plan.

Demand is rising while uncertainty is rising with it

The global economy remains uncertain with trade relationships shifting and geopolitical tensions changing sourcing decisions. The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are driving increased defence demand, while governments are simultaneously looking to strengthen domestic industrial capability and reduce strategic dependencies.

Farnborough reflected that changing environment with around half of the record 1,600 exhibitors representing military technology. It is clear Governments are increasing defence spending while aerospace companies are also dealing with the commercial aviation backlog.

For suppliers, this creates competing demands for the same resources: skilled people, specialist manufacturing capacity, materials, components and engineering capability. This creates the question: can an entire network can absorb changing demand without losing control?

The weakest point may not be where you think

One of the recurring themes from Farnborough was the importance of looking beyond the immediate supplier relationship. A Tier 1 supplier might appear healthy, but what is happening further upstream? Is a critical component dependent on a single specialist manufacturer? Is capacity available if demand increases again? Are quality issues being resolved quickly enough? Are changes being communicated consistently across the network?

In an industry where production schedules can stretch years into the future, waiting for a supplier to miss a commitment before taking action becomes expensive. When visibility starts to fall short, knowing that a delivery is late is useful but knowing why a delivery is becoming late, who owns the response and what is being done becomes much more valuable.

The opportunity is in better execution, not another layer of reporting

Aerospace manufacturers already have enormous amounts of data with ERP and MRP systems containing orders, schedules, inventory and transactional information. Quality systems hold non-conformances and compliance teams manage certifications and approvals.

In many organisations, the difficulty is connecting that information to the people who need to act on it. Often, the operational layer around those systems still depends heavily on emails, spreadsheets, meetings and manual follow-up which creates an uncomfortable paradox: as the aerospace supply chain becomes more sophisticated, some of the processes used to manage it remain remarkably manual.

While different businesses have different challenges, we noticed the same reoccurring themes: delivery risks being identified too late, too much time being spent chasing supplier updates, critical information spread across disconnected systems, and teams are being asked to improve performance, reduce risk and prove compliance, often without any additional resource.

This is one of the areas where we see Valuechain making a practical difference. Rather than replacing an organisation's existing ERP or MRP environment, Valuechain sits alongside it, connecting purchasing, supplier commitments, quality and compliance into structured workflows. Suppliers can acknowledge commitments, teams can track actions and delivery risks can be identified earlier, without creating another disconnected system to manage.

Across organisations using Valuechain, teams have reported 50–75% reductions in the time previously spent on manual supplier coordination, alongside up to 40% improvements in OTIF performance. Those numbers matter because they address two sides of the same aerospace challenge: freeing capacity within already stretched teams while improving the reliability of the supply network.

Farnborough's real message for aerospace

For us, one of the most interesting takeaways from Farnborough was the scale of the execution challenge sitting underneath the industry's growth. While Airbus and Boeing have the demand, airlines and lessors continue to place orders, defence requirements increase and Governments want stronger domestic aerospace capability, the technology pipeline is moving forward. But none of that matters if the supply chain cannot translate demand into reliable production.

For aerospace manufacturers, the next competitive advantage may, therefore, come less from seeing further ahead and more from coordinating better today. The organisations that can connect suppliers, commitments, quality, compliance and operational decisions will be better positioned to increase production without simply increasing the amount of time required to keep it moving.

That was perhaps the clearest message we took away from Farnborough: the next phase of aerospace growth will be won in the supply chain and the companies best placed to capture that growth will be the ones that can scale their production without scaling their operational complexity at the same rate.

Events like Farnborough remind us just how collaborative and innovative the aerospace and manufacturing sectors are. The opportunity now is to build the supply-chain resilience and coordination needed to match that ambition.

Thank you to everyone who made this year's event such a success - we're already looking forward to the next one!