Paul Smith, chief procurement officer of London, U.K.-headquartered BAE Systems, scouted for suppliers from among 70 Indian companies to feed into their global supply chain. Smith said his company would like Indian suppliers to satisfy and execute the $221 million offset contracts for the Indian Army order for 145 M777 ultra lightweight howitzers. But this is only a small part of their global supply chain requirement. “Our plan for supply chain is to develop a large number of vendors here and capability here in India …” he said.
BAE Systems evaluated around 40 Indian suppliers ‘to join the global supply chain of the M777’. “Our goal is to increase the supply chain here in India and to develop suppliers here — it could be small vendors, very small vendors, larger vendors — but develop the capability of the suppliers here in India to ultimately create a supply chain here in India that can support different items,” explained Smith.
