Transcript for "Strengthening Supply Chain Integrity in A&D Manufacturing: Policy, Technology & Collaboration":
Hello, everyone. I'm Padma Raghunathan, senior product marketing manager at Deltek. Thank you for joining us for today's presentation titled strengthening supply chain integrity in a and d manufacturing at a time when policy, technology, and collaboration are converging. Before I get started, I have a few administrative items to note. For the best webinar experience, please use Google Chrome. If you have a question, please type it in the q and a box anytime, during the presentation. We will address as many questions as we can at the conclusion of the webinar, and any questions left unanswered will be addressed individually offline following today's presentation. Resources, including, this presentation slides are available for you to download, in the resources tab on your screen, and you'll also receive the on demand recording of today's webinar via email, within twenty four hours after the webinar ends. So with that, let's go ahead and get started. Alright. So I spend a great deal of my time looking at the intersection of government policy, pricing, manufacturing, and quality, particularly, in the aerospace and defense contracting world. And today, we are going to be talking about supply chain integrity, which is the title of our session. And we chose the word very deliberately. Right? When we say resilience, that usually asks whether or that usually means whether the supply whether supply chain can recover. Right? But when you talk about integrity, that is asking a harder question. Right? Can you trust the supplier? You know? Can you trust the material, the process, the decision, and the evidence behind it? That is a standard aerospace and defense manufacturers are increasingly be held to, and it is the standard that we will explore in this session. So we'll move through four parts. So in the next thirty to forty minutes, I'll walk you through this, in in four different sections. So first, I'll introduce a practical test of supply chain integrity, Then we will look at why the pressure is increasing and where responsibility is moving. And from there, we will examine the operating capabilities manufacturers are strengthening. And finally, we will bring policy, process, and technology together into a practical path forward. The sequence matters because technology comes later because the first question should always be what the operation needs to accomplish. So let's begin where supply chain risk becomes real, which is inside an active program. So imagine that a critical special process supplier is placed on quality hold after an audit finding. Right? It might be a heat treatment provider or a plating house or, another supplier whose work cannot simply be moved overnight. Right? So the quality hold itself is only the first event that has happened. Very quickly, people across the business begin asking different questions, which is, procurement wants to know what purchase orders are open. Manufacturing wants to know what material is already on the floor. Quality needs to identify affected lots and inspections, and then your engineering team needs to confirm the approved source and process requirements. And then your program leadership wants to understand the schedule, the cost, and customer impact. The supplier issue may have started in one location, but the business impact rarely stays there. So here's the test. How long would it take your organization to produce a trusted answer? Not simply a collection of emails. I'm not talking about that. I'm not even talking about seven spreadsheets that disagree with each other, but one answer that people are willing to act on. So if the answer is measured in days, the real exposure is not only the supplier event. It is also the time the organization loses trying to understand it. That operational test comes down to four questions. First, can we trace the material? Right? We need to know where it came from, which lots or serial numbers, contain it, and which programs, depend on it. Second, was a supplier qualified for the exact requirement? Now a supplier can be approved in general and still be unapproved for a particular part, process, facility, or a customer program? And third, can we respond before the problem spreads downstream? Right? That means containing material and coordinating decisions across functions while the information is still changing. Finally, can we prove why we made the decision? Right? So in aerospace and defense, like many of you are probably aware, a reasonable action without a reliable record can still become a customer or an audit or a contractual problem later. So you trace, qualify, respond, and prove. Those four capabilities are a useful way to pressure test the operation because together, they reveal whether supply chain integrity exists in practice. Yeah. And it's also important to understand that not every supplier creates, you know, the same level of risk. So a common mistake a lot of contractors make is to treat every supplier with the same review cycle and the same controls. Now that creates administrative volume without necessarily reducing the most important ask. So the the suppliers that deserve greater attention sit at the intersection of consequence and replaceability. So a sole source supplier supporting, say, a flight critical component presents a very different exposure from a supplier providing a readily available commercial item. So when you have special processes or long lead materials or customer source approvals or even, say, access to controlled information, all of this increase the cost of failure. And a declining quality or delivery performance just adds that early warning signal. So the practical point is that supplier management should be risk based. Teams need to know which suppliers can stop production, which can affect several programs, or those that require months of requalification. So those are the relationships that need deeper visibility, evidence, and a viable response plan. And once we identify where consequence is concentrated, then the next question is why this has become so urgent now. The pressure is coming from the market, from customers, and increasingly from policy. So let's look at how that's changing. So Deltek, as per our 2026 clarity study, actually gave us a very useful view of what manufacturers, especially in a and d, are experiencing. And, clearly, the operating pressure has shifted. So supply chain resilience and domestic sourcing now rank as the number one manufacturing challenge, and quality traceability ranks second. Now, those concerns belong together. As organizations change sources, they qualify domestic alternatives or manage scarce materials, they also have to preserve part genealogy, those approvals, and also the the evidence that's related to quality. Now the increase in compliance, as you can see in, the slide here, that shows that this pressure is being felt operationally. Now the percentage of respondents naming government compliance as one of their top challenges rose from 4% last year to 19% this year. Right? That's nearly a fivefold increase, in in a in a twelve month time frame. Now I would not interpret that as manufacturers suddenly discovering compliance. No. It needs to be interpreted as it as a as compliance moving closer to daily execution. Now sourcing decisions, cybersecurity requirements, supplier records, and even, you know, the evidence in your production processes, all of those can affect whether work can proceed and whether a contractor can defend its position. So the broader message is that supply chain pressure no longer belongs to procurement alone. It is actually reshaping manufacturing quality, program execution, and most importantly, financial risks. And and let me be straight over here. No single policy created this environment. Several policy signals are converging around the same expectation, which is more transparent and connected execution. Now digital engineering policy has increased the emphasis on authoritative data across the program life cycle. I'm sure many of you are aware, that there was a DOD instruction that came out in December 2023 that is driving this. And then the move towards firm fixed price contracting, that places more cost and execution risk on the contractor. And then the other big elephant in the room, is CMMC. Right? And CMMC implementation may move through reviews and timing adjustments, but the underlying responsibility to protect, controlled information remains. And then you also have the executive order one four four one five, that came out in, July of this year, and that adds sharper expectations around supplier qualification, supply chain mapping, and also material traceability. And then something as recent as three weeks ago, which was, the the supplier cost and transparency memo that was put out by the department of war, that goes further on major negotiations. So it calls for cost visibility across contractor and subcontractor tiers for products and services valued at, $10,000,000 or more, with, an exception for commercial of the shelf items, in the actual cost, access provision. So these policies address different problems. Right? But they all point in one direction. The government wants to understand where critical inputs are coming from, how decisions were made, and whether the contractor can support the price, the performance, and compliance position with evidence. And I I want to focus a little little more on this, EO one four four one five, because, this order makes the timing especially important. So the order was signed on 07/20/2026. Within ninety days, the department of war is directed to develop a strategy to accelerate the testing and qualification of new sources and materials. And then within a hundred and eighty days of that executive order signing, it is directed to establish policy for, supply chain mapping, bills of material, supplier vetting, and material traceability while also identifying acquisitions that need alternative trusted sources. That's a lot. Right? But you're not done yet. Then when we reach 01/01/2027, when restrictions on certain domestic, nonavailability waivers take effect, an accepted, mitigation plan becomes increasingly important at that at that time when an exception is needed. And then following implementation of that hundred and eighty day policy, contractors should also prepare for compressed reporting expectations, which includes a fifteen day notification of significant supplier risk and a forty five day corrective action planning as described in that forthcoming guidance. So the practical issue is not simply memorizing all these dates. It is recognizing how little time those dates leave for process redesign. So supplier data, you know, that cannot be mapped in fifteen days if no one knows who owns it. Right? A corrective action plan cannot be assembled quickly if quality, procurement, and program information sit in separate systems. So the clock measures reporting time, but readiness depends on the operating foundation built before the clock actually starts. And this is the underlying transfer of accountability, which is more execution now, risk more sorry. More execution risk now sits with the contractor. So requirements flow down from government to the prime and then through suppliers and subcontractors. But when a lower tier issue affects quality, cybersecurity posture, cost or delivery, then the risk flows back up to the prime and the program. So a contractor cannot say, oh, that was our supplier system and then expect the customer to separate the two out. No. The prime still remains accountable for the promised outcome. So fixed price contracting reinforces that dynamic because delays, rework, and even sourcing changes can actually land directly in the margin column. So cost transparency increases the expectation that contractors understand the basis of the supplier and subcontractor costs. And then your supply chain policy adds visibility into the origin and the qualification of critical materials. So in other words, the contractor is increasingly expected to govern a network it does not fully own. So that requires much better visibility than a traditional vendor master or a approved supplier list, can provide. Right? And this is another important, you know, piece to think about. So most organizations do not have a complete absence of data. Right? It's never like, oh, I don't have the information. That that's usually not the case. They do have pieces of the answer, but distributed across the business. So procurement has supplier records. They have the purchase orders. And then you have your engineering. They have the the bombs and the approved revisions. Your manufacturing, they know what's going on on the shop floor, and then your quality team is pretty much overseeing all the audit findings, inspections, and nonconformances. And then your finance, they see the cost and margin impact, and your program management understands customer commitments. Now each function may be correct within its own system, but a supplier event does not respect functional boundaries. Right? The answer requires all of those views at once. And this is why I describe the fragmentation I describe fragmentation, sorry, as the real root cause. Now the problem is not simply that teams use different applications. Right? The problem appears when the relationships among supplier material revisions, lot numbers, work orders, and programs have to be rebuilt manually during a time sensitive event. So it is similar to having every page of a map stored in a different room. The information exists, but it cannot guide the response until someone finds the pages and puts them in the correct order. So now let's follow, you know, the the decision change. Right? So let's let's look at it this way. So the first action is always containment. Right? So teams, identify the affected material. They identify the lots and all the work in progress. Then they trace the event to parts, to the orders and also to the programs. Only after they understand that exposure can they assess production cost and delivery impact. Next comes a decision that often looks easier than it is, which is basically the question is, can we use another supplier? Now that question brings engineering approval, supplier qualification, and customer requirements into the response. If an alternative is viable, then purchasing, planning, work instructions, and in and your inspections may all need to change. And then you have communications. That runs through the entire chain because your suppliers, internal functions, and customers need different information at different points. And then finally, the organization has to preserve the reasoning and evidence behind that response. So email is useful for a conversation, but it is a poor operating system for this for this chain. And your spreadsheets, you know, they can organize a list, and they can do a pretty good job organizing the list, but they do not automatically maintain the connection between the decision and execution. So the speed of response, therefore, depends on how well the decisions actually stay connected. So that brings us to the point about, okay, what are leading manufacturing manufacturers, sorry, building building to respond with greater speed without weakening control. So what are the capabilities that actually strengthen the supply chain? So the first capability is actually, the the shared operational context. Right? So your procurement, quality, manufacturing, they they don't need to see identical screens, but they do need to make decisions from consistent supplier, material, and program information. Then the second is clear decision authority. So during a supplier event, ambiguity about who can contain material, who can approve an exception, or release production, all those things creates delay and risks. Then third is synchronized work. Right? A sourcing change should trigger the appropriate, engineering or quality and other program actions rather than rely on people to forward the right email. And then the operating record should also capture approvals and changes while the work occurs. So that gives, the organization evidence without creating a second documentation exercise afterwards. And then finally, the response should improve the next decision. So supplier performance and corrective action results so those results actually should influence future sourcing and qualifications. So what you did today, what what your decisions were today, they should help you inform the next supply chain and next supplier qualification exercise. So this is what connected operation means in practical terms. So common context, control decisions, and feedback that improves the next cycle. The next capability that organizations need to strengthen is traceability, because traceability often gets reduced to a certificate or a lot number. In practice, the value actually comes from the relationship amongst those records. Right? So the supplier connects to, say, a specific material or part, and then that part connects to an approved source and bill of materials revision. Then that purchase order gets connected to a receiving lot. Then that move that lot moves into inventory and then a manufacturing order and then eventually to potentially a serial controlled assembly. So the routing, work instruction, and inspection records show how that particular item was processed. And then quality history shows whether an exception occurred or not. And then the program connection reveals the customer, schedule, and cost consequence. Just look at that. Right? You took one material and part and look at the the links and the chain that it has to go through. So when those links remain intact, a team can start with a supplier and find every affected program. It can also start with a fielded serial number and work backward to the material source and inspection evidence. So that two way navigation is the operational value of a digital threat. It turns traceability from a filing exercise into a decision capability. And this is this is an important question, and this is an important slide because, you know, disruptions always occur, especially in in a labor and a time and a material intensive environment like manufacturing. Disruptions are given. But when disruption occurs, the instinct is often to ask, who else can make this? Right? And that is necessary, but it is only the first question. An alternate supplier may have the equipment and the general capability, yet they can still be unapproved for the part or the process or even the program. Now it may lack a required accreditation. Maybe its cybersecurity posture, may not support the information it needs to receive, or it may depend on the same constrained lower tier source as the incumbent. But before selection, teams need to understand technical fit, approvals, domestic sourcing requirements, capacity, your risk the overall risk. Right? Price matters, but a lower quoted price has limited value if qualification delays the program by six months. So before production release, the organization needs a controlled transition. So that may include customer authorization, first article inspection, process validation, drawings that are updated, even inspection plans, and new lot or serial controls. So an alternate supplier is less like replacing an office vendor, but more like adding a new component to a certified system. So availability opens the conversation. Qualification and operational readiness determine whether the alternative can actually protect the program. And qualification establishes a baseline at a point in time, but that does not guarantee that the supplier remains ready. Right? So that is why you want to make qualification a life cycle, not just simply a checkpoint because you have capacity changes. You have certifications that expire. Ownership of businesses change. A supplier may move work to one facility, or they may change a lower tier source. Right? And quality and delivery performance can deteriorate gradually before a major event occurs. So that is why qualification works better as a life cycle. Now the organization establishes capability and approvals, then monitors the signals that could change the risk position. So when performance moves outside expectations, teams contain the immediate issue and drive corrective actions. And periodically or even after a significant change, they reassess whether to requalify, restrict, or exit that supplier. So this changes that approved supplier list from a static roster into a current statement of readiness. And it also helps prevent a common audit problem, which is a supplier appears approved in the system, but the evidence supporting that status no longer reflects present conditions. And that is something that we see often. So that is why it's important that, you know, we we turn that ASL, into something that is, as I said, a current statement of readiness, which also helps prevent, you know, audit problems. Alright. So we we we've spoken about quite a few things in terms of, you know, capability, but there's another thing that is also critical when it comes to strengthening supply chain capability, which is collaboration supplier collaboration, you know, which is you know, it needs more structure than just simply exchanging attachments and documents. Right? Suppliers should have a clear way to submit current certifications. They should have a clear way to receive authorized specifications, acknowledge changes, and response respond to corrective actions. They also need visibility into what the customer expects and when an action is due. Internal teams need, a corresponding view. So they should know which version is current, what evidence is missing, whether an approval remains open, and whether the issue threatens production. So the phrase supplier portal sometimes makes this sound like a document drop box. Now the business requirement is broader, though. The organization needs controlled exchange status visibility and a preserved decision history. And that becomes especially important when a supplier change affects controlled technical information. So collaboration has to be easy enough for people to use while still enforcing access, authorization, and also record keeping requirements. So the goal at the end of the day is you want to have faster qualification without actually, giving up control. Right? And, and supplier qualification by default always contains that tension between speed and control. You move too quickly you move too slowly and production waits. Right? Your scarce material remains unavailable, delivery commitments slip, and the organization stays exposed, to a failing source. You move too quickly, and risk enters through the side door. The supplier may lack a required approval or validation may be incomplete, or a quality escape may reach the customer. So the answer is not to choose speed or control. It is to vary the depth of control according to risk and remove avoidable waiting time from the process. Critical suppliers should receive deeper technical and quality review. That's a given. Standard evidence requirements make submissions easier to assess. So your technical sourcing and quality reviews can often proceed in parallel. And missing information should become visible early, and exception authority should be very explicit. So that is how teams shorten elapsed time without actually lowering the qualification standard. So they remove idle time and ambiguity rather than removing the necessary controls itself. Alright. And the this is another important aspect when it comes to how strong your supply chain is, which is about evidence generation. Right? And and this is where based on what, you know, the policy changes are, what's happening in the industry, that is a direction that, you know, we are we are going, where evidence generation should be simply retrieval, not reconstruction. Right? And there is an important difference between storing documents and generating evidence. So in a reconstruction model, an audit or customer request begins a search. Then someone hunts down hunts through shared drives, emails, and supplier folders, and then the team tries to explain what happened and why often months after the decision was made. In an execution model, the record forms as the work happens. So the requirement is connected to the action. The approval includes the person, the date, the basis, you know, that that decision was made, and the nonconformance links to the affected item and the corrective action. And the revision then is used in production, you know, that remains, identifiable. And then when the organization needs that evidence, the task is simply retrieval rather than corporate archeology. So this matters beyond audits. The same record helps an operation leader understand current exposure. It also helps support a customer conversation and also gives the next sourcing team better information. So your audit readiness becomes an outcome of controlled execution rather than a seasonal scramble. Alright. Then comes automation, AI, and people where all of them play different roles in strengthening the capabilities that you need for a resilient supply chain. Right? So technology can improve the response, but only when we are clear about what each capability should do. So when you talk about automation, right, automation handles repeatable movement. It routes approvals. It monitors due dates, triggers escalation, and keeps standard controls from depending on memory. Then AI is useful for finding relevant information and servicing patterns that may not that we may not see quickly. Right? So it can help identify emerging supplier risk or summarize a large body of quality information. It can also direct a user to an approved procedure. And then you have people. Right? They ultimately remain responsible for judgment. Right? We hear constantly about human in the loop. Well, there's a reason why that's constantly being mentioned because at the end of the day, it is people who make the final decision. They determine whether an exception is acceptable, whether production can continue, or whether a customer needs to be involved. So think of it this way. Automation keeps the signal moving. AI helps interpret the signal, and people decide what action the business can defend. That division matters in aerospace and defense. Speed is valuable, but accountability cannot disappear inside an algorithm. The strongest use cases keep trusted data, defined authority, and human review around that decision that was made. Alright. So we've made the capabilities pretty clear, what it is that you need to build that strong supply chain, integrity in place. The next question is whether the current operating foundation can actually support them. So I'm going to refer back to our clarity survey data, And just, in case anyone's interested, we do have a link over here, but you can also go on deltech.com, and you can actually access, this clarity or this clarity report. And you can download it for free. And there's a lot of information that you can, that you can benefit from as, an aerospace and defense contractor. So coming back to this, the clarity data shows the gap between rising current operating capability. 49% of manufacturers don't have automated manufacturing operations. Just think about it. 50% of the industry almost doesn't have automated operations, and then 41% do not have their quality management system, integrated with ERP. And the average organization spends fifteen days preparing for shop floor audits and another thirteen days preparing for quality audits. Combined, that's like almost like a month of productive capacity being devoted to getting evidence ready. Now these numbers describe the same underlying issue, which is manufacturers are being measured on traceability and readiness, but many still depend on manual handoffs and disconnected systems to produce them. This is also where AI conversations can become a bit premature. If supplier status, material genealogy, and quality records are consistent, AI can retrieve the wrong context faster. So the foundation has to provide reliable relationships and controlled records first. So the opportunity is not simply to digitize more activity. It's to it is to reduce the time between a signal, a decision, and a defensible response. And a practical modernization sequence begins with integration. So you connect supplier, ERP, manufacturing, quality program engineering, all of these, functions around the decisions that matter. So this does not require replacing every system at once. It requires preserving the relationships among the records. Next, extend the digital thread so approved changes can carry across life cycle boundaries. So a supplier or a material change should reach the bill of materials. It should reach the purchasing record. It should reach work instructions and inspection plans without relying on someone to recreate the decision in each system. Then automate stable, repeatable workflows like, qualification reviews, approvals, inspections, escalations, and evidence capture. Automating a broken process only allows the confusion to travel faster, so process discipline must come first. And once the context and controls are reliable, governed AI can help teams surface risk and reach the relevant information sooner. So and security and governance apply across every stage. Controlled information, role based access, and audit history cannot be added at the end. So the sequence is pretty straightforward. Integration creates context. Automation produce consistency, artificial intelligence improves speed, and governance makes the result trustworthy. And up at up to this point, we have focused on what contractors need to strengthen operationally. Now I want to show you how Deltek supports the model across a project life cycle. So the Deltek platform is designed around how project based businesses win, plan, execute, and analyze their work. That life cycle view matters because supply chain risk rarely begins when production starts. During the win stage itself, right, contractors make early decisions about partners, subcontractors, material costs, and lead times. Once the contract is awarded, Deltek then helps turn those assumptions into budgets, schedules, sourcing plans, and resource commitments. And during execution, actual supplier performance, manufacturing progress, quality outcomes, and costs begin to test the original plan. So the analysis stage then gives leaders visibility into what changed, why it changed, and how the result should inform the next decision or future bid. And Deltek connects the commercial promise made during the pursuit with the operational reality of delivering the program. So that continuity helps contractors identify risks earlier, protect program performance, and improve each cycle of work. And Deltek does this best. Right? Deltek's focus is project based business that includes organizations that operate under cost, compliance, and execution demands of government contracting. Now that matters because the business model shapes the system requirements, and an aerospace and defense contractor has to connect an opportunity and proposal to a contract. They have to connect it to a program, supplier commitments, manufacturing execution, quality, and finally, the financial performance. And industry specific intelligence also matters. Right? The context behind a sourcing or a pricing decision is different when the work involves controlled information, customer approvals, certified processes, and contract flow downs. So the Delta difference is therefore not an isolated feature. It is the ability to apply project and government contracting context across the work with governance and control built into the operating environment. And here's how that comes together across the Deltek portfolio. GovernIQ supports the front end by helping contractors identify opportunities, potential partners, and subcontractors. And then Propricer, which is our pricing solution, brings discipline to the next decision, which is what will this work cost, which material and subcontractor assumptions support the estimate, and can the organization defend the proposed price? After award, cost point provides the project, procurement, and financial foundation that turns assumptions into executable plans. So your cost point and tip technologies together then extend that control into supplier qualification, quality management, and production traceability. And then project portfolio management, helps teams coordinate their risk mitigation and understand program impact when conditions change. So cost point, TIP, and PPM together preserve the performance and compliance evidence, behind the response. In fact, even, I would say that govern IQ and propricer. So with with with Deltek platform, there is as I mentioned, you know, you you create and generate the evidence as you do the work. And, also, the value is in the connection. Right? The assumptions made in the bid should inform the plan. Supplier and manufacturing performance should be visible against that plan, and actual cost and execution results should strengthen the next estimate. So this creates a continuous loop from opportunity to evidence and back to the next opportunity. And for organizations evaluating Deltek, that is a conversation worth having. Right? Where does that life cycle break today, and what does the break cost in time margin or risk? Alright. So as we wrap this up, I I just one thing I wanna say is that you don't need a multiyear transformation plan before taking the first useful step. Over the next ninety to hundred twenty days, focus on one area where disconnected execution creates program risk. So you wanna start by identifying critical suppliers and special processes. Select one and test whether you can trace it to every affected lot or program. Time how long it takes to produce the supplier's qualification evidence. Map one supplier change process from the first risk signal through production release. And as you map it, look for those handoffs. Where does someone reenter information? Where does work wait because ownership is unclear? Who can authorize containment, approve an exception, and communicate with the customer, and then select one automation effort with a measurable result? Now that might be reducing qualification cycle time, cut maybe cutting evidence retrieval time or improving closure of corrective actions. And then you confirm how controlled information and supplier cybersecurity responsibilities are governed within that process. So the goal is not to automate the largest process first. No. Choose a high consequence process where better connection produces a result that operations quality and program leadership can all see. Alright. And as we wrap this, as I close this, one thing I'll say, and I mentioned this in one of my previous slides as well, is that, you know, supply chain integrity is not the absence of disruption. Disruptions will continue. A supplier will miss a delivery. A quality finding will happen. Source will become unavailable. No technology platform can promise otherwise. Supply chain integrity shows up in the process itself. Can the organization see the impact across materials, production, and programs? Can the right people coordinate, before the issue spreads? Can teams maintain control while making a timely decision? And can the organization demonstrate the evidence when a customer or auditor or a contracting officer asks for it. So that brings us back to the scenario where we started. A critical supplier goes on quality hold. The strongest organization is not necessarily the one that never faces that event. It is the one that can produce a trusted answer quickly and answer with confidence. And that capability protects more than just compliance. It protects delivery, margin, customer trust, and the ability to compete for the next program. Thank you for spending, this time with me. I hope you will leave with a practical way to test supply chain integrity and a clearer sense of where to, begin, strengthening. And at this time, we are going to pause and do a brief, polling question, before the q and a. Okay. So our polling question for today is, would you like to be contacted by a sales representative to learn how Deltek's AI enabled platform powers project success. So we're just going to leave this up on the screen for a minute or so, allow everyone to answer our question, and then we will hop into our q and a for today. Just give it another second here. Okay. Close our poll and moving on to q and a. So for today, our first question is many of our lower tier suppliers are smaller companies with limited systems. How do we improve visibility without creating so much reporting burden that they stop working with us? That is a great question, and I also believe that is a very real concern. So many many small suppliers typically don't have large compliance teams, or they may not necessarily have sophisticated supplier management systems. So in a situation like that, I would, I would start by segmenting suppliers based on criticality. Right? And, again, this is just based on what we typically see in the industry. This is just a recommendation, not necessarily a prescription. But one thing one thing contractors could do is that or rather, you should not ask every supplier for the same depth of information. So, you you know, contractors should probably focus on the heavier requirements on suppliers. You know, that's tied to critical materials or special processes, controlled information, or components that are difficult to replace. But then make the process easy for suppliers. Like, be clear what, information you need, why you need it, and how often that information has to be updated. And you will want to avoid asking them to submit the same evidence to different teams in different format. So if a process becomes so burdensome that capable suppliers leave the market, then we have simply replaced one supply chain risk with another. Okay. Yeah. Thank you for that answer. Our next question here is how do you build a business case for connected operations when much of the value comes from avoiding disruption and risk rather than reducing a visible line item cost? So, see, that that can be difficult if if a if the business case is framed only as avoiding a hypothetical disruption, right, I would connect it to to the cost that the organization can already see. So for instance, how many hours do teams spend searching for supplier records? How long does qualification take? Or what does a production hold cost per day? Or something like how much are you spending on expedited material, rework, audit prep, or manual reconciliations between different systems? So choose that one high risk process and establish a baseline. So for instance, you you can measure how long it currently takes to trace a supplier issue across, the affected lot and the program. Then you quantify what a faster, more reliable response would mean for labor schedule exposure and also the margin. So then that turns the conversation from we need better integration to basically, okay. Here is the operational and financial problem we can solve. So looking at it purely from a risk avoidance filter, would actually be detrimental. Okay. Thank you. Okay. We have another question here. If supply chain, quality, manufacturing, IT, and program management all own part of this, Who should actually lead the transformation? So when you talk about transformation, it's obviously a cross functional thing, but you still need to have one accountable business leader or a team that is doing this. Right? So in many organizations, that could be an operations or a supply chain leader because they feel the immediate delivery impact. Your your quality needs a strong role because qualification and release decisions cannot be separated from the process. And then when you think about program leadership, you know, they bring the customer and the schedule perspective, risk perspective, and then your IT, they enable the systems and the data connection. So when we talk about transformation, I would avoid making this as an IT led transformation. Technology, yes, it is part of the answer, but the business has to define the decision process, the ownership, and the risk threshold. So the exact title of the leader matters less than giving someone the authority to bring those functions together and then hold them accountable for the outcome. So doesn't matter what the title is. It's just that someone has to be accountable for how this transformation takes place and what the impact is. Okay. Alright. Thank you. It doesn't look like we have any more questions in the queue at this time. So we'll go ahead and close out the q and a portion of our webinar. But before we officially conclude, we want to remind you'll receive an on demand recording of today's webinar via email within twenty four hours. And if we were not able to get to your question today, we will sure we will be sure to follow-up with you directly offline. And with that, I'd like to thank you for joining us today. Please visit deltek.com for more upcoming Deltek events. Have a great rest of your day.