NATS wins Supply Chain management award

NATS has scooped a national supply and purchasing award for its procurement work in an international air traffic management project with Canada’s leading air navigation service provider, NAV CANADA.

The Collaboration on Oceanic Airspace and System Tools project (COAST) and delivery of GAATS+, an innovative collaboration between NATS and NAV CANADA, was recently awarded ‘International Procurement Project of the Year’ by the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply.

This project saw NATS and NAV CANADA working collaboratively to deliver the new GAATS+ air traffic management system into the Oceanic operation to enable safety, service and environmental benefits.

A ‘build-once, use-twice’ concept was applied, for systems and tools, and this considerably reduced acquisition costs and the long term costs to sustain equipment.

NATS Supply Chain team, based in Whiteley, Hampshire, worked with the NATS and NAV CANADA teams to establish an arrangement to apply an efficient process between all parties for agreeing requirements and the project scope.

Tim Bullock, Supply Chain Director at NATS, said: “We recognised that only through partnerships with strategic suppliers could we deliver the best for our customers. Our collaboration with NAV CANADA has taken this approach to a new level and the award demonstrates that our work is being recognised by respected best practice bodies such as the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply.”

Kim Troutman, Vice President Engineering at NAV CANADA, said: “We congratulate NATS on this important award recognising its procurement approach. We value the strong partnership between air navigation service providers on both sides of the North Atlantic and believe it has benefitted our joint customers through reduced costs and by enabling us to collaboratively make enhancements to our oceanic services.”