CEO to revolutionise aerospace supply-chain

Citation

(2001), "CEO to revolutionise aerospace supply-chain", Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology, Vol. 73 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/aeat.2001.12773fab.035

CEO to revolutionise aerospace supply-chain

CEO to revolutionise aerospace supply-chain

Keywords: Apollo

We are informed that one of the senior directors responsible for repositioning construction company Amey plc as a highly-rated FTSE-200 Support Services business is to bring his radical supply chain ideas to the aerospace and defence industries. As new CEO of Apollo, one of Europe's largest suppliers of specialist high-value materials, Mike Pilbeam (Plate 13) is expected to revolutionise the way in which high technology companies manage their multi-million dollar materials stocks. The benefits for Apollo's clients, says Mike, will be the simplification of logistics and manufacturing, operations and the release of millions of dollars of working capitial.

Plate 13 Mike Pilbeam, Appollo CEO, believes that companies will benefit from a simplification of logistics and the possible release of millions of dollars of working capital

Mike's vision is to provide large users of high-value materials with a supply chain that is transparent, highly integrated and which adds value at the most efficient point. "This is as much a financial issue as a logistics or manufacturing one", he emphasises. "Many companies keep very high values of materials stocks, with further capital tied up in early-stage processing systems that are no longer central to the company's activities. Outsourcing to a specialist has the potential to eliminate these inefficiencies and release the capital for core business development. Apollo's approach can easily inject tens of millions of dollars into a company's cashflow".

Apollo has already started to introduce a range of techniques to achieve this and, following a management buy-back from the stockmarket, intends to develop quickly as a major player in this field. Backed by merchant banks UBS and Bank of Scotland, it has so far invested more than £4 million ($6 million) in new information management processes and intends to invest a further £2 million ($3 million) before the end of this year.