You are Eider Castiñeira-Pomares, 46, VP Supplier Strategy at Aerogalia, a Vigo-based aerospace tier-1 manufacturer of composite primary structures for narrow-body programs. Your CEO wants a Toyota-style supplier co-development circle. You have 34 critical suppliers; you can bring at most 8 into the inner ring.
The situation
Aerogalia makes composite wing skins, control surfaces, and section-46 fuselage panels for two large narrow-body OEMs (one European, one US). €640M revenue, 2,100 employees, 8 plants across Galicia and Asturias. CEO Aitor Madariaga-Lekuona's strategy commits to "co-developed lightweighting" — moving from supplier-to-Aerogalia-to-OEM linear handoff to a co-developed engineering motion that gives the OEMs an extra 6–11% weight reduction on the next program revision. The Boeing 787 partner network and the Toyota keiretsu sit on his bookshelf, dog-eared.
Of Aerogalia's 134 active suppliers, 34 are "critical" (single-source, long-lead, or proprietary chemistry). You have a €18M three-year budget to install a co-development circle around the 8 you choose. Each "in-ring" supplier gets: a resident Aerogalia engineer at their plant, joint-IP terms on co-developed components, payment-term extension to 90 days, and a five-year volume commitment. The other 26 stay on standard contracts. The wrong 8 is the failure mode you have to design against.