For a 20–100 person aerospace supplier, the first realistic step toward digital execution is a tightly scoped pilot on one critical workflow, not a full MES replacement. The most practical pattern is to digitize travelers and work instructions (or NCR capture) for a single value stream, cell, or product family and run it in parallel with your existing paper process.
1. Pick a very narrow, painful use case
Trying to “go digital” across the whole plant usually fails in smaller aerospace shops because of validation effort, change resistance, and integration complexity. Instead, choose one of these:
- Digital travelers and routing for a single product family or customer program.
- Digital work instructions for a constrained cell (e.g., a machining cell plus inspection).
- Digital NCR and rework capture on a limited scope (e.g., all nonconformances for one major customer or one process like plating or machining).
Selection should be based on where you currently see avoidable rework, late paperwork, or audit pain, not where it is easiest to automate.
2. Anchor it to one or two concrete outcomes
Define 1–2 measurable targets so the effort stays realistic and justifiable:
- Reduce traveler-related defects or missing signatures by a defined percentage on the pilot scope.
- Cut traveler or router printing and rework time by a defined number of hours per week.
- Shorten NCR closure time for the pilot scope.
- Improve evidence availability for internal audits in the pilot area.
These outcomes help constrain requests for “one more feature” and keep the first step implementable with limited resources.
3. Layer digital on top of existing ERP/QMS, do not rip and replace
Most 20–100 person aerospace suppliers already have some combination of ERP, QMS documents, and spreadsheets. Replacing them outright upfront is usually too risky and costly in a regulated context. For the first step:
- Keep ERP as the system of record for orders, part masters, and inventory. The digital execution pilot should read reference data, not reimplement ERP logic.
- Keep your QMS as the system of record for procedures. Digital work instructions can link to controlled documents rather than replacing your document control process on day one.
- Limit integration to basic data flows. For a first step, this might be a nightly import/export, or a very simple API or CSV-based connection, instead of complex real-time integrations.
This incremental approach respects existing validations, minimizes downtime risk, and reduces the probability that you must re-qualify multiple systems at once.
4. Start with digital travelers or work instructions in a pilot area
A practical first implementation often looks like this:
- Choose 1–2 similar part families or a single, representative cell.
- Configure digital travelers that mirror your current routers and paperwork (operations, inspections, sign-offs, data capture fields).
- Add digital work instructions where operators currently rely on tribal knowledge or informal notes.
- Ensure traceability fields (serials, lots, operator IDs, timestamps, equipment) are captured consistently in the digital flow.
- Provide operators with simple terminals or tablets at point of use rather than a central kiosk that increases walking and delays.
You are not trying to model the entire plant. You are proving that one flow can be executed digitally with acceptable usability, data integrity, and auditability.
5. Run paper and digital in parallel at first
In regulated, customer-audited environments, it is often safer to run a controlled parallel period instead of an overnight cutover:
- Use digital travelers or NCRs as the operational workflow, but still print a summary or traveler to attach to the job packet for a defined transition period.
- Cross-check a small sample of digital records against paper for completeness and accuracy.
- Record and review discrepancies and incorporate them into your change control and risk assessments.
This increases short-term effort, but it gives you evidence that the digital process behaves as intended before you deprecate paper on that pilot scope.
6. Treat the pilot as a controlled change, not an experiment
Even for a small shop, the first digital execution step benefits from basic governance:
- Change control: Log the change, scope, and impacted procedures within your QMS or internal change process.
- Defined owners: Assign a process owner (operations or quality) and a technical owner (IT or a technically inclined engineer).
- Risk assessment: Identify failure modes such as system downtime, incorrect routing logic, or missing signatures, and define manual fallback procedures.
- Training and competency: Document how operators and inspectors are trained on the new system, and how you verify they can follow the updated process.
This does not need to be heavy, but it should be explicit. It also provides a traceable story for customers and auditors about how you introduced the new system.
7. Be explicit about failure modes and contingencies
For a realistic first step, you need clear answers to:
- What happens if the digital system is down? For example, pre-approved paper travelers or forms and a defined process for back-entering data when the system is restored.
- What if data is entered incorrectly or a step is skipped? How do you detect and correct it, and how is rework documented?
- How do you handle revisions? What happens when a router, work instruction, or drawing revision changes mid-pilot?
Documenting these contingencies keeps the first step from becoming a source of new quality or compliance risk.
8. Use the first step to learn about integration and validation effort
Once the pilot is running, focus less on showcasing the software and more on learning about your own environment:
- How hard was it to keep master data (part numbers, operations, revisions) aligned with ERP?
- Where did your operators struggle with the interface or workflow logic?
- How much effort did it take to update procedures, train people, and capture evidence of change?
- Did the pilot create any unexpected audit or customer questions?
These lessons inform whether and how you expand scope. They also prevent you from committing to a plant-wide rollout based on unrealistic assumptions about effort or risk.
9. Why full replacement is rarely a realistic first step
For a 20–100 person aerospace supplier, immediately replacing ERP, travelers, inspection forms, and QMS workflows with a new integrated system is usually not realistic because:
- Qualification and validation: You may need to demonstrate that the new system reliably supports your AS9100 or customer-specific requirements, which is hard to do if everything changes at once.
- Downtime and disruption: Small shops cannot usually absorb multiple days of production disruption while new systems stabilize.
- Integration complexity: Many suppliers already have customer portals, FAI tools, or specialty systems in place; redoing all connections at once is high risk.
- Traceability and history: Migrating or reconciling historical records and part lineage can be non-trivial, especially if you rely on prior travelers and NCRs to respond to audits and customer investigations.
This is why a small, well-governed, digital execution pilot is a more realistic first step than a wholesale digital transformation program.
