Aerospace Supplier Scorecard and Risk Rating
This free aerospace supplier scorecard lets buyers, supplier quality engineers, and supply chain managers rate any supplier across ten weighted criteria in about five minutes: on-time delivery, PPM quality, escapes, AS9100 and Nadcap status, FAI performance, SCAR responsiveness, financial stability, capacity, compliance flowdown verification, and communication. The result is a risk band - high risk, conditional, or preferred - with concrete management actions for each. It mirrors how primes score you, so it doubles as a lens on your own performance. Use it to standardize approved supplier list reviews, prepare for source selection decisions, or bring structure to a supplier that is trending the wrong way.
1. What is this supplier's on-time delivery (OTD) performance over the last 12 months?
Measure against the original promise date, not renegotiated dates. Aerospace primes typically expect 95%+ OTD.
2. What is the supplier's quality performance (defect rate / PPM or lot rejection rate)?
3. Has this supplier caused any quality escapes that reached you or your customer?
4. What is the supplier's certification status?
5. How does the supplier perform on first article inspections (AS9102) for new and changed parts?
6. How responsive is the supplier to corrective action requests (SCARs)?
Look at both closure speed and quality: real root cause versus 'operator retrained' answers.
7. How would you rate the supplier's financial stability and business continuity risk?
8. Does the supplier have capacity and lead-time headroom for your demand, including surge?
9. Does the supplier meet your compliance flowdowns (ITAR/EAR handling, DFARS/CMMC cybersecurity, counterfeit prevention, raw material traceability)?
10. How proactive is the supplier's communication and continuous improvement?
How the scoring model works
Each criterion is scored 0-3 against thresholds drawn from aerospace industry norms rather than generic supplier management practice: 95% OTD and sub-500 PPM as the top band because that is what primes expect of their own suppliers, escapes weighted by recency because escape history is the strongest predictor of future escapes, and certification scored by tenure and surveillance history because a fresh certificate tells you less than three clean cycles. The model deliberately mixes lagging indicators (OTD, PPM, escapes) with leading ones (SCAR quality, capacity headroom, proactive communication, financial health), since lagging metrics tell you what happened while leading metrics tell you what is about to.
Aerospace benchmarks to score against
When a criterion asks for a judgment call, anchor it to these industry reference points:
- OTD: 95%+ is the standard prime expectation; sustained performance below 90% typically triggers probation or resourcing at major aerospace customers
- Quality: world-class machining and electronics suppliers run below 500 PPM; above 10,000 PPM (1% defective) is generally disqualifying for flight hardware
- SCAR closure: 30 days is the common contractual expectation for full root-cause response, with containment inside 48 hours
- Compliance: primes increasingly require subcontractor SPRS scores and counterfeit-prevention evidence at onboarding, not just certificates
Using results across your supply base
The scorecard becomes most valuable when applied consistently rather than once. Score your critical and sole-source suppliers first - risk concentrated there is unmitigable on short notice - then work outward by spend. Re-score quarterly and manage the trend, not the snapshot: a supplier falling from 80% to 65% deserves more attention than one stable at 60%, because trajectory predicts escapes and delivery failures better than level does. Share scores with suppliers openly; in practice, suppliers who see their scorecard improve measurably faster than those managed through expedites and complaints. Finally, calibrate scorers - have two people score the same supplier independently once a year and reconcile differences, or your data quietly becomes opinion.
How Netray automates supplier performance management
Manual scorecards die of data collection - OTD lives in the ERP, PPM in the quality system, SCARs in email, and financial checks nowhere. Netray builds live supplier scorecards on top of Infor SyteLine, LN, and Baan, pulling receipt-versus-promise dates, inspection results, and nonconformance data automatically so scores update continuously instead of quarterly. We implement supplier portals for FAI and SCAR workflows, approved-source enforcement at PO entry, and on-prem AI that flags deteriorating trends - slipping receipts, rising rejections, slowing SCAR responses - before they become escapes. Your supplier reviews shift from assembling data to acting on it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How often should we formally score our suppliers?
Quarterly for critical, sole-source, and probationary suppliers; at least annually for the rest of the approved supplier list, plus event-driven rescoring after any escape, major finding, ownership change, or key personnel departure. AS9100 requires performance monitoring of external providers, and auditors increasingly ask to see the data and the actions taken from it - a scorecard with no linked decisions is a finding waiting to happen. Automating data collection from your ERP is what makes a quarterly cadence sustainable.
What OTD and PPM targets should we set for aerospace suppliers?
The common aerospace baseline is 95% on-time delivery measured against original promise date and under 2,500 PPM for machined and fabricated parts, with preferred-supplier status typically requiring 98% OTD and under 500 PPM. Electronics assembly often carries tighter PPM expectations. Set targets by commodity risk rather than uniformly: a sole-source flight-critical forging house warrants tighter thresholds and more frequent review than a bracket supplier with three qualified alternates.
A key supplier scores in the high-risk band but we cannot replace them. What now?
Treat it as risk management, not scoring. Immediately: increase inspection, buffer inventory on their parts, and put a documented improvement plan in place with executive sponsorship on both sides. In parallel, start qualifying an alternate even if qualification takes a year - the option itself changes the supplier's behavior and your negotiating position. Sole-source dependence on a failing supplier is one of the few problems that only gets more expensive with time, so start the clock now.
Score your highest-risk supplier now and see whether your gut feeling survives contact with a structured rating.
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A 30-point checklist for AS9100 Rev D certification and surveillance audits, weighted toward the aerospace-specific requirements where auditors write the most findings.
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