Aston Martin Targets More Flexible Supply Chain

In a week where many SMEs have been encouraged to reshore manufacturing processes back to the UK, one of the country’s more renowned companies has signalled its intentions to boost its domestic supply chain.

Aston Martin is looking to improve sustainability and flexibility as part of the move, with Senior Purchasing Manager, David Wyer telling Supply Management that an increase in the UK’s contribution to global operations would “meet our quality, cost, environmental and risk management criteria”.

“We believe that local suppliers have this capability together with the additional benefit of flexibility towards managing increasing component complexity,” he went on to say.

The company currently deals with more than 200 suppliers in regards to its car parts operations; with less than half based in the UK. The remaining strongholds are spread across the rest of Europe, North America and Asia-Pacific, making management of logistics and procurement a challenge.

This isn’t to say there won’t be challenges in edging the system closer to home though, as Wyer continued to explain: “In terms of challenges, we want to continue to select partners and build relationships that will hold for a number of years. Continuing to do this in a very competitive market, with production volumes as small as ours can be difficult.

“In terms of people, maintaining and attracting highly-skilled procurement professionals in an equally competitive market provides a significant challenge.”

Image credit: Max Earey / Shutterstock.com