Preferred Supplier Award

None

McDonnell Douglas Aerospace (MDA) maintains a supplier certification process to establish long-term partnerships with suppliers. These relationships, in turn, enable MDA to satisfy its customers with top quality, technically excellent, affordable products that are delivered on time. This certification process has focused on the complete business process, accelerated product and process improvements, and strengthened teamwork between MDA and its suppliers.
There are three major elements to the supplier certification process including assessment of supplier business processes, SPC, and supplier performance management. A team assessment is conducted of a supplier undergoing certification. The assessment process looks at management, quality, technology, cost, delivery, and customer support criteria. The statistical process control component of certification requires a documented SPC implementation at the Bronze level; critical processes and control characteristics identified at the Silver level and improved process capabilities, utilization of SPC, and a philosophy of continuous improvement at the Gold level. The Supplier Performance Evaluation and Rating System (SPEARS) process is used to measure quality in terms of acceptance rate and cost of quality, rate of on-time delivery, and supplier responsiveness. This Silver Award from McDonnell Douglas Corporation to Flight Systems Division GEC Marconi on the 5th June 1996. This was probably awarded for the work the Company did on the F-14 Digital Flight Control system which reinvigorated the F-14 ‘Tomcat’.