Twenty awards were presented to sixteen suppliers in four different categories of merit, one more than the first edition of the Awards. The Operational Excellence and Service Excellence categories were maintained, rewarding punctuality, quality, spirit of collaboration and commitment to excellence, as well as the Sustainability Awards commending achievement of results and commitment in the area of sustainable development. In addition to these, a new Vision for Growth category pays tribute to suppliers who stand out for their ability to share the vision and for their dynamism and efficacy in implementation of the goals of the LEAP – Leonardo Empowering Advanced Partnership – programme, through which Leonardo drives and accelerates growth of SMEs in the national economy.
The sixteen award-winning suppliers come from ten different regions of Italy, demonstrating how the Leonardo supply chain has become a backbone of production throughout the entire country. The supply chain accounts for 13% of Italy’s High Tech industry, with 10 billion euro in added value, supporting a total of over 125,000 jobs in direct, indirect and related industries. In detail, the awards in the Operational Excellence category went to O.M.P.M., P.E.C., Ecor International, Collins Aerospace – Microtecnica and Civitanavi Systems, while awards for Service Excellence were presented to TXT E-Solutions, SSE – Sofiter System Engineering, T.P.S., Sipal and Prisma, and suppliers Manta Group, L.M.A., T.P.S., A.L.A. and Garofoli were presented with Sustainability Awards. The suppliers awarded prizes in the new Vision for Growth category were Logic, A.L.A., Poggipolini, Manta Group and Civitanavi Systems.
During the event, Leonardo’s Chief Procurement & Supply Chain Officer Giacinto Carullo emphasised that the twenty awards assigned “commend suppliers who offered an outstanding response to our expectations, sharing Leonardo’s commitment to the construction of an increasingly competitive, innovative and sustainable industrial ecosystem,” underlining the expertise Leonardo puts in place every day in its relations with the supply chain.
At the opening of the event there was a round table discussion with the participation of Managing Director of Leonardo Helicopters Gian Piero Cutillo and Stefano Bortoli, Head of Leonardo Aerostructures, who outlined the perspectives of their respective business areas, highlighting the sectors that will have the strongest impact on the supply chain, as well as Chief Technology and Innovation Officer Franco Ongaro, who identified the areas in which Leonardo and the supply chain will be prioritising innovation in the next five years, examining the Group’s technologies and the evolution of its portfolio of products and services. Ability to respond to challenges and take risks with a long-term perspective, investment in technology, reinforcement of know-how: the panel identified these as the requirements suppliers will have to meet, in increasingly close collaboration and partnership with Leonardo, to respond to the business scenarios and technological innovation of the future as described by the managers.
The Leonardo Supplier Awards 2022 was also the occasion to analyse, with Paolo Rostirolla VP Supplier Sustainability & Development, the results of the sustainability assessment, which involved more than 600 suppliers in the second half of 2022, highlighting the significant progress made by suppliers in the 18 months since the first assessment and setting the next objectives that Leonardo has identified to further elevate its supplier chain towards excellence. “Facing future scenarios characterised by the consolidation and regionalisation of the supply chain and an increasing focus on technology”, Carullo explained, “suppliers will be able to take advantage of the decoupling, reshoring and nearshoring plans of the big players, but they will have to be ready and create aggregated poles of competence and excellence in order to compete in the changed international scenario”.
SMEs will have to structure themselves to cope with the ramp-up of existing programmes and new initiatives, have perseverance in their growth and development plans for the LEAP Programme to jointly address current and future challenges, considering digital transformation, cyber security, and decarbonisation as an integral part of their growth strategy.
