The international Aerospace Innovation forum is a major event in the aerospace industry organized by Aero Montreal. The event's main target is to promote innovation and business opportunities for Quebec companies.

Big thanks to the team at Aéro Montreal, a Quebec aerospace cluster created in 2006 and including the leaders in the aerospace industry in Quebec, for the great networking opportunity and thoughtful discussion.

Quebec being an important player in the aerospace industry, Aéro Montréal's mission to increase cohesion and optimize the competitiveness of this market is massively important.

This event was a breath of fresh air for the industry having most of its in-person meetings greatly reduced during the pandemic.

As was highlighted in the major themes of sustainability and ESG in the event, there will be a lot of collaboration across the different players in the industry required to achieve important sustainability milestones for the whole aerospace industry.

Events like this are the perfect opportunity to strengthen the links between all players in the market to align incentives, from the big Original equipment manufacturer (OEM) like Airbus to the small innovative startup like Axya!

With the resilience the aerospace supply chain demonstrated during the last 2 years, this need for collaboration sounds like an opportunity to bring the aerospace industry to new heights that surpass the pre-pandemic level!

Axya in Aerospace

Axya being an e-procurement company with a large footprint in the aerospace sector, the event was the perfect opportunity to connect with our customer base.

On top of the business development opportunity, having feedback from what leaders in the industry are thinking about in the long term was massively beneficial.

The main themes of the event match deeply our vision of managing procurement sustainably while taking into consideration not only the cost of the parts sourced but also the environmental impact, diversification of the supplier base, and risk on the supply chain.

The importance of transforming an organization to be more sustainable was well expressed by OEM executives attending who stated that their current challenge to hit environmental objectives within these constraints were:

1. Improving traceability from the raw material to the end of the supply chain.

2. Getting their suppliers on board the sustainable business approach (here is a great article in Supply Management about how to talk to your supplier about sustainability).

3. Ensuring the whole organization is set up so that the right data can be shared easily with various stakeholders.

These discussions around sustainability and sustainable growth built on a core data backbone resonated a lot with us and helped us see how our vision of the future of procurement in aerospace matched the market.

Our software currently allows our clients to have one central place to view and follow their procurement operations data (without having to deduplicate data).

By connecting to our client's ERP system and enhancing the procurement process we are able to yield up to 90% time-saving in operational time and up to 40% cost-reduction per part sourced.

Not only that, but this type of transparency allowed us to reduce the actual RFQ processing by up to 30% on average in an aerospace company (read more about how it was done here).

Visibility is definitely a competitive advantage and a crucial component to reaching some of the most pressing goals of the aerospace industry.

This is even more important as the pressure for the attainment of the ESG objectives is coming from the stakeholders themselves for which ethical issues like this one can’t simply be brushed over.

Key Takeaway from our Aerospace Account Manager

Let’s hear some key takeaways from our aerospace account manager Keven Minier who is managing some of the big enterprises on Axya that were sponsoring the event.

The Aerospace Innovation Forum was extremely enriching! Either it was from meeting new people from the industry, reinforcing relationships with our actual clients or by staying informed on what's the current challenges in the industry.

Speaking of challenges, the Aerospace industry is definitely facing their fair share. In addition to the target of attaining net zero emissions by 2050, the industry has to navigate through the chaotic state of their supply chain, which is a big issue that is not easy to tackle. A clear example is small suppliers that are seeing their order book being filled like never before and can't keep up with the pace.

What's struck me the most is that a big part of the supply chain issues comes down to an information problem.

Keven Minier

Reach out if we missed you!

It was great to meet up with customers, partners, and leaders in the industry at the event. If you wanted to meet, but haven’t had the time, worry not!

We are always happy to discuss with players in the aerospace industry and exchange ideas. Send us a contact request through our contact form or simply connect with our team on LinkedIn:

• Félix

• Nicolas

• Keven

See you next year! 👋

Yacine Mahdid