Fortifying Aerospace & Defense: Converting Resilient Supply Chains into Market Advantage

For aerospace and defense leaders, disruption is no longer an occasional challenge. It is the operating environment. Geopolitical instability, changing defense priorities, emerging competitors, and persistent supply chain constraints are forcing organizations to rethink how they build resilience and compete.

The challenge was succinctly captured by moderator and Avasant Senior Partner and Aerospace & Defense Practice Lead Naresh Lachmandas, who noted that “these disruptions are the new norm.”

That reality framed one of the most important conversations at the 2026 Empowering Beyond Summit in Los Angeles. During the panel discussion, executives from The Aerospace Corporation, Pratt & Whitney, Northrop Grumman, and Deloitte shared how leading organizations are leveraging digital technologies, AI, and operating model transformation to strengthen resilience and accelerate execution. A clear theme emerged: organizations that successfully balance speed, innovation, and operational discipline will be best positioned to lead the next era of aerospace and defense.

Speed Is Now a Business Requirement

The pressure to accelerate is coming from both customers and competitors. Will Setiyawan, Head of ERP at Northrop Grumman, described speed as “the number one mandate,” while noting that established aerospace and defense companies must respond within complex, regulated, and traditionally risk-averse environments. At the same time, newer defense technology companies are establishing different expectations for how quickly solutions can be developed and delivered.

The urgency to accelerate is not driven solely by customer expectations. It is also a response to an unprecedented market change. Deloitte Partner Jishnu Mullick highlighted the root of this challenge, noting that “The marketplace has changed dramatically, but the rules of engagement haven’t moved fast enough.”

For many aerospace and defense organizations, the challenge is not simply adopting new technologies. It is adapting legacy operating models and decision-making processes quickly enough to keep pace with increasingly dynamic market conditions.

The leadership challenge is therefore not whether to prioritize speed, but how to institutionalize it responsibly. As Will Setiyawan cautioned, “We need speed, but we also know speed can kill. The question is how we move with speed while still maintaining discipline.”

For executives, this distinction matters. Moving faster does not require abandoning the controls that can define the industry. It requires redesigning processes so that governance, assurance, and decision-making operate at the pace the mission demands. The competitive advantage will belong to organizations that make discipline an enabler of speed rather than a reason for delay.

Resilience Must Extend Beyond the Supplier Base

Supply chain resilience is often framed in terms of sourcing alternatives, inventory, and supplier continuity. The panel expanded that definition. A resilient enterprise must also be able to coordinate information, processes, talent, and decisions across functions.

Rahul Dharni, Global CIO at Pratt & Whitney, observed that separate teams can optimize their own priorities while “suboptimizing the end-to-end.” In aerospace manufacturing, a single missing component can prevent an engine from shipping or a repair from being completed. Local efficiency is therefore of limited value if the broader value stream remains fragmented.

This makes operating-model simplification a strategic supply chain priority. Organizations should identify the common processes that cut across programs, reduce unnecessary variations, and build a digital thread connecting engineering, operations, suppliers, and aftermarket services. As Rahul Dharni explained, although individual programs may view their requirements as unique, “90% is the same thing.”

For leaders, the implication is clear: resilience cannot be achieved through procurement actions alone. It depends on the enterprise’s ability to gain end-to-end visibility, make informed decisions, and respond rapidly across the value stream.

AI Is Only as Powerful as the Foundation Beneath It

The panel offered a practical warning for organizations racing toward AI. AI does not compensate for weak processes or unreliable data. It magnifies them. As described by Will Setiyawan, “If the data and the process underlying it are broken, AI is going to give you the wrong answers, but it is going to do it in a very confident manner.”

This is especially consequential in supply chains, where inaccurate lead times, incomplete supplier records, or inconsistent master data can distort recommendations and undermine operational decisions. Once users lose confidence in AI-generated insights, adoption suffers, and organizations risk falling back on manual workarounds that limit transformation.

For that reason, AI readiness should be viewed as an operating model challenge, not simply a technology initiative. Simplified processes, trusted data, and clear ownership are not preliminary cleanup activities; they are the foundation that determines whether AI delivers meaningful outcomes.

At the same time, the panel emphasized that organizations should not pursue AI for its own sake. The most valuable applications are those that address real operational constraints, such as validating supplier commitments, identifying alternate sourcing options, directing scarce engineering resources, and accelerating routine work that slows execution. As Rahul Dharni emphasized, “Don’t treat AI just for the sake of AI. It has to be embedded in the overall business strategy.”

For aerospace and defense leaders, the measure of AI success is not the number of pilots launched or technologies deployed. It is whether AI helps improve decisions, strengthen execution across the value stream, and deliver measurable business outcomes.

Autonomy Requires Guardrails and Trust

As organizations move beyond AI insights toward autonomous agents capable of executing actions across business processes, adoption will depend on more than technology. Aerospace and defense leaders must establish clear guardrails, determine where human oversight remains essential, and build trust across the workforce. As Tameika Hollis, CIO at The Aerospace Corporation noted, successful AI adoption depends on understanding organizational culture and communicating how employees can focus on higher-value work rather than viewing automation solely as a threat. In particular, “Don’t underestimate your culture. To get adoption and allow AI to become a true scaling optimization, you have to be real about what your culture looks like, who is in it, and how you speak to them.”

The Executive Imperative

The next era of aerospace and defense performance will not be defined by technology alone. It will be defined by how effectively leaders connect technology to operating discipline, workforce trust, and measurable business outcomes.

Four priorities stand out:

• • Design for speed with control, rather than treating governance and acceleration as opposing forces.
  • Manage resilience across the end-to-end value stream, not only within individual functions or supplier relationships.
  • Establish trusted data and simplified processes before scaling AI, because automation will amplify the underlying operating environment.
  • Preserve human judgment and original thinking, particularly where changing conditions make historical knowledge an incomplete guide.

Resilience becomes a market advantage when it enables an organization to respond faster, execute more reliably, and earn greater confidence from customers. For aerospace and defense leaders, the goal is no longer resilience for resilience’s sake. The organizations that will lead the next decade are those that transform resilience into a source of speed, agility, and competitive advantage.

By Thomas Hacker, Consultant, Avasant | Will Setiyawan, Senior Director ERP, Northrop Grumman | Rahul Dharn, Global CIO, Pratt & Whitney | Tameika Hollis, VP and CIO, The Aerospace Corporation | Jishnu Mullick, Principal, Deloitte