FourCentric shares three key takeaways from Farnborough International Airshow 2026, including the aerospace industry’s focus on production ramp-up, the growth of Aero Excellence and the need to turn operational assessments into practical improvement.
The Farnborough Airshow provided a useful opportunity to hear how aerospace organisations are thinking about the next phase of growth. Across the Aero Excellence session and our conversations at the event, one theme came through consistently: the industry is focused on ramping up production, while many organisations are working to strengthen the operational capabilities needed to deliver it.
1. Ramp-up is everyone’s challenge
Ramp-up was probably the phrase we heard most often throughout the week. Demand is growing, but many organisations are trying to increase production while still dealing with the after-effects of recent years. Skills gaps, inconsistent processes and operational pressures haven’t disappeared, yet businesses are being asked to deliver more than ever before.
One comment summed it up perfectly. “Many organisations simply don’t have the breathing room to stop, improve their operations and then continue. They have to do both at the same time.”
That’s becoming one of the defining challenges for aerospace manufacturing.
2. Aero Excellence shows the industry is moving in the right direction
Aero Excellence was one of the biggest talking points, particularly in discussions around production readiness and operational maturity. The ambition is clear: create a common framework that gives OEMs and suppliers a shared understanding of capability while reducing duplication across the supply chain.
The framework represents something the industry has needed for a long time: a common way of measuring operational maturity that reduces duplication and gives suppliers and OEMs a shared understanding of capabilities.
As one attendee put it:
“By having one standard common to everybody, it reduces all that redundancy… it will simplify things for the supply chain and make it more effective for the whole industry.”
The conversations we had suggested that the picture is still evolving. While some organisations see Aero Excellence becoming an important part of the future landscape, others told us it hasn’t yet reduced the number of audits they complete or become a requirement for their customers.
What everyone did agree on, however, was that reducing duplication and giving the industry a common language for operational maturity would be a positive step.
3. The conversation is shifting from assessment to improvement
One of the more interesting observations from Farnborough was that manufacturers were often less interested in talking about assessment frameworks than they were about the operational challenges they face every day.
Production planning and Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP) came up repeatedly in our conversations, alongside the challenge of increasing output without disrupting existing operations. Those discussions reinforced that operational maturity isn’t simply about achieving an assessment score. It’s about building the capability to plan, respond and deliver consistently as demand increases.
Aero Excellence helps identify those weaknesses, but organisations still need a practical way of addressing them. Knowing where the problems are is valuable. Building the capability to solve them while delivering for customers is the harder part.
That’s where operational excellence moves beyond a scorecard and becomes part of how an organisation plans, sources, makes and delivers.
Looking ahead
Farnborough left us optimistic. There’s a genuine willingness across the industry to work towards common standards, share best practice and strengthen the resilience of the supply chain.
The challenge now is turning that momentum into practical, measurable improvement. Because if the conversations at Farnborough showed us anything, it’s that the organisations best placed for the next phase of growth won’t necessarily be those with the biggest order books, but those with the operational capability to deliver them.
Questions worth asking
As production demand increases:
• Do you have visibility of the constraints across your end-to-end supply chain?
• Are your planning and operational processes ready to scale?
• Is your organisation spending more time preparing for assessments than improving performance?
If you’d like to explore these questions further, we’re happy to have a conversation.
Email: info@fourcentric.com