Team Sport: GE Aerospace Helps Suppliers Build Safety Management Systems

By the time an aircraft engine part takes flight, its safety story is already years in the making.

Between the shop floor and the runway lies a chain of decisions, processes, and handoffs, many of them invisible to the flying public but all essential to safety. Within that network, GE Aerospace is working more closely with suppliers — not only to strengthen manufacturing processes, but to help them build the internal systems that allow risks to be identified and mitigated early.

Chief among them is a Safety Management System, or SMS: a structured approach to identifying hazards, assessing and mitigating risk, and reinforcing a culture of safety across operations. Safety Management Systems have been one of the biggest contributors to making aviation the safest form of transportation.

One supplier working with GE Aerospace on that effort is Woodward. The manufacturer makes fuel-delivery and engine-control components, along with actuation systems, used in commercial and defense aircraft. As the company grew, Woodward’s leadership recognized the need to scale its safety efforts and strengthen its safety culture. It saw an opportunity to learn from GE Aerospace, which established its SMS a decade before the FAA mandated such systems for certain manufacturers in 2024.

“It will strengthen our organization and our approach to product safety,” Jeremy Nelson, Woodward’s Vice President of Quality, said of its SMS. Nelson, who was tasked with the collaboration effort with GE Aerospace, added, “While Woodward has established a strong product safety foundation, we recognize the opportunity to advance from a traditional compliance-driven mindset to a proactive, systems-based approach that strengthens product safety across the organization.”

GE Aerospace worked with Woodward to stand up an SMS for its manufacturing operations through training, shared best practices, and ongoing support. The goal is not simply to hand over a framework, but to help suppliers build systems that are practical and sustainable within their own operations.

"We wanted to benchmark our SMS off the most mature SMS system we could. That’s why we went to GE Aerospace. The transparency, the best practices, and the lessons learned were extremely helpful,” Nelson said. 

Although an SMS is not currently required by the Federal Aviation Administration for most suppliers, GE Aerospace is working with several suppliers to stand up or enhance their SMS as part of a broader safety effort. This effort also includes its Partnership for Safety, which the company launched in 2022 after inspections identified contamination in some raw material. The issue was caught before any incident occurred, but it reinforced the importance of deeper collaboration with suppliers, especially those providing materials used in rotating parts that are exposed to extreme forces and temperatures inside an engine.

The Partnership for Safety focuses on transparency, data sharing, and issue resolution. Teams review progress and address challenges in real time. They then hold leadership reviews to align priorities and remove barriers. Additionally, GE Aerospace leaders meet with supplier executives to reinforce long-term goals and maintain the focus on safety. 

For many suppliers, the work has deepened awareness of how materials that may serve many industries become critical components in aircraft engines, where quality and integrity can directly affect lives. In some cases, suppliers have asked to see finished components made from the materials they produce, creating a tangible connection between their day-to-day work and the engine hardware used in flight.

That collaborative mindset is not new. The work builds on a long tradition in aviation of collaborating—not competing—on safety. After United Airlines Flight 232 crashed in Sioux City, Iowa, in 1989 following a titanium fan disk failure, GE Aerospace helped establish the Jet Engine Titanium Quality Committee. The forum enabled industry leaders to share best practices to improve titanium melting processes and help prevent similar failures.

“Safety transcends business rivalries,” said Terri Braun Voutsas, head of GE Aerospace’s Flight Safety Office, who was just beginning her career at the company when the Sioux City crash occurred. “We will always do everything we can, including partnering with our suppliers, to Bring Them Home Safely” — part of the company's guiding purpose statement.

Today, GE Aerospace continues that spirit of collaboration through initiatives including participation in the Jet Engine Nickel Quality Committee, which focuses on nickel-based alloys, and membership in the International Aerospace Quality Group, a nonprofit that helps set quality standards across the global aerospace supply chain. It also helped found the Aviation Supply Chain Integrity Coalition to prevent unapproved parts from entering the supply chain.

Helping suppliers establish SMS and the Partnership for Safety are natural extensions of that commitment.

“It’s a big step toward building a stronger safety culture and showing what’s possible when companies work together,” says Braun Voutsas. “We are very proud that we were the first to get a voluntary SMS accepted by the FAA, and it’s a really strong system. But we cannot stop there. We have an opportunity, and I would argue a responsibility, to build on that foundation and lead the industry.”