Factory Tour at Gardner Aerospace – Derby

✈️ Precision at scale. Resilience by design. Step inside a highly regulated aerospace manufacturing environment.

At Gardner Aerospace’s global headquarters in Derby, strategic decision-making, supply chain control and manufacturing execution converge inside one of the most tightly regulated industrial environments. With nine manufacturing sites across five countries (UK, France, Poland, India and China) and group turnover of around $350m, Gardner supports major OEM and Tier 1 customers with complex, high-integrity components where quality, traceability and consistency are non-negotiable.

This is an opportunity to see a working aerospace operation up close – a live, commercially sensitive environment where performance is delivered under pressure and to exacting standards.

Operational focus for the visit

This tour will centre on how Gardner runs and sustains operational performance within a demanding aerospace context, including:

• Vertically integrated supply chain management – how Gardner manages internal and external supply chains in a centralised structure

• Sustainability in practice – how sustainability expectations are being addressed across operations and supply chain

• Continuous improvement and resilience – how decisions are made with regulation, customer pressure and investment demands in mind
  
  

What you’ll experience on the day

• A leadership perspective on operating within a highly regulated aerospace supply chain

• A guided tour of the Derby facility, highlighting key processes, technologies and shop-floor activity
  A leadership perspective on operating within a highly regulated aerospace supply chain

• A guided tour of the Derby facility, highlighting key processes, technologies and shop-floor activity, including:

• A broad range of advanced manufacturing capabilities supporting aerospace and similarly high-integrity, highly regulated applications

• Recent investment in long-bed CNC machining, including Modig machining systems, enabling the manufacture of large, complex components requiring precision and repeatability

• Representative metallic parts and assemblies, from simple components to highly complex machined and fabricated structures

• Inspection and quality-control touchpoints, including non-destructive testing and in-process measurement

• End-to-end in-house processing and finishing, providing controlled, repeatable manufacturing under one roof

• Insight into operational performance, resilience and continuous improvement in a commercially sensitive environment

• Peer-level discussion with fellow manufacturing leaders navigating similarly complex constraints

Why attend?

Aerospace is a sector where discipline, documentation and delivery are not optional – and Gardner’s operation reflects that reality. This tour offers manufacturing leaders a practical, senior-level perspective on how complexity is managed day-to-day – from supply chain structure and quality governance to sustaining performance at scale.

Even if you are not in aerospace, you’ll take away ideas relevant to any business dealing with compliance, customer pressure, operational risk and continuous improvement.

Security and attendance approval

• All attendees require pre-approval by Gardner Aerospace

• Additional security requirements apply due to the commercially sensitive nature of the facility

• ID must be valid and in date (passport or driving licence) and will be required in advance as part of the visitor registration process

• Due to limited capacity, attendance may be limited to one delegate per company

Agenda (indicative)

09:00 – Guests arrive
09:00 – 09:45 – Refreshments and networking
09:45 – 10:00 – Introductions
10:00 – 11:30 – Guided factory tour (including presentation and site walk)
11:30 – 12:00 – Event close