SOURIAU was awarded the Supplier Performance Award by its prestigious customer, SAFRAN, on November 22nd. The ceremony included 450 SAFRAN´s suppliers, and the award acknowledges the excellent results of SOURIAU´s QRQC (Quick Response Quality Control) process implementation. The QRQC program was launched a year ago and has reduced SOURIAU´s product returns by 30% and divided per 2 the average response lead time. SOURIAU was previously named Top Supplier for 2012 by Labinal, the SAFRAN group company dedicated to harnessing activities.

SOURIAU supplies SAFRAN, leading aeronautics equipment, with high performance connectors. Last year SAFRAN proposed to SOURIAU to be a pilot in QRQC process implementation in order to further improve the quality of its deliveries. The QRQC has been a cultural change with daily reviews in order to increase reactivity in customer problem solving and to anticipate detection in factory workshops. During these daily reviews, each new issue detected must immediately be characterized and analyzed, with appropriate alerts and extra controls to secure the customer supply chain within 24 hours. This very reactive process has been cascaded throughout the Souriau organization with involvement of all activities including Business Units, Process engineering, R&D, and also Human Resources to ensure this transversal cultural change. “We were highly motivated to implement the QRQC process for our strategic partner SAFRAN, with whom we developed in the past years close relationships in full transparency and more intimacy in a continuous improvement spirit. Thanks to this QRQC process we have also considered the more minor defects generating 10 to 50 ppm (part per million) which were not considered in our classical Quality management system.

This approach also allows resolving quality issues quickly and in a more practical manner with Onthe-job training (OJT) to analyze real parts with coaching in real workplace, in real time. It has enabled us to focus on what is important and urgent to secure customers,” explained Mr. Thierry Quillet, Managing Director at SOURIAU for 3 plants located in France and in Morocco. 

“Our collaboration with SAFRAN has been further enhanced by QRQC as we have improved the interactivity and responsiveness of our common supply chain. The QRQC methodology will be gradually applied to all standard product lines and production sites in France and Morocco. We are all convinced that our results and success with SAFRAN will also enhance partnerships with other major customers,” concluded Mr. Quillet. Jean-Luc Gavelle, the President of Esterline Connection Technologies Platform - SOURIAU is delighted of this award, as it is the extension of the continuous improvement process we are pursuing for years, receiving this award from SAFRAN is a real distinction that our team can only be proud of.