16/10/2024
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ESA spends over 5 billion euros annually on procurement, relying on robust, high precision engineering as well as innovative ideas for its space missions, where the quality of ESA suppliers is paramount. ESA recently presented three space companies with prestigious awards for excellence and innovation.
Airbus Defence and Space (France) received the Excellence Award as prime contractor for their very high level of performance over several years within ESA’s Juice mission.
ASP Equipment (Germany) received the Excellence Award as a sub-contractor to ESA for their timely delivery of all three flight models of the Auxiliary Electronics Units for Plato.
Excellence awards are given to those companies making a significant beneficial impact on the project’s objectives or having significant value from a technical and financial perspective. The nominations are based on the proposals from the ESA projects working directly with the suppliers.
KP Labs (Poland) received ESA’s Innovation Award for the high number of innovative proposals submitted over the last three years.
The Innovation award is based on nominations from the team working within ESA’s Discovery element which funds research, studies and early technology development activities in all areas of space technology and research.
Since 2019, ESA’s Supplier Evaluation process has identified strengths, weaknesses and potential areas for improvement for ESA suppliers. The reports created support the risk management process of ESA projects.
ESA sends Supplier Performance Evaluations to all companies doing business directly with the Agency. The level of feedback given to suppliers depends on the level of concern and how critical or strategically important the issues. By gathering key information about its suppliers and helping them to take action to improve, ESA can mitigate or even eliminate risks that could impact the performance of its projects and programmes.
In turn, identification of the key elements or areas where companies would need to improve their performance, can help them to be more successful when working in ESA programmes. Good performance also makes these companies more attractive to ESA’s prime contractors which are more inclined to include them in their teams; this potentially allows them to be assigned higher responsibility in future projects.
These two awards for excellence and one for innovation were presented for the first time to suppliers at ESA’s Industry Space Days event in September at ESTEC, its Technical Centre in the Netherlands.
Christine Klein, Head of the Industrial Policy and Auditing department at ESA commented: “Companies working with ESA are very positive about the benefits of the supplier evaluation process which can guide changes within their business to add value and make them more competitive. This year, we are delighted to celebrate the excellent work of Airbus Defence and Space, ASP Equipment and KP Labs.”
The Agency intends to make such awards every year bringing public and ESA-wide recognition of the outstanding performance of European companies working in the frame of ESA programmes and projects.