How Primes Score Supplier Delivery and Quality

Updated October 12, 2026

The two numbers every scorecard has

Delivery and quality are the core of every published prime scorecard we have read.

• Delivery is a ratio of on-time receipts to total receipts, measured against the PO schedule date, usually by lot or schedule line rather than by piece.
• Quality starts from supplier-responsible defects and adds penalties for things a buyer cares about more than a single rejected part: escapes that reach the production floor or the field, corrective actions that come back late or get rejected, and events that stop a line.

Both are rolling averages. One bad month dents the score; three bad months move a supplier into a lower band. AS9100 requires certified organizations to monitor external provider performance, so this is audited practice at every tier, not only at the primes. How a supplier first gets onto the list is covered in how shops get on an approved supplier list.

Lockheed Martin's published Supplier Scorecard

Lockheed Martin publishes the arithmetic. Its Supplier Scorecard explainer, revision date April 2021, combines a quality rating and a delivery rating, each measured to a 6-month average.

The quality rating is 100 minus three deductions:

The delivery rating divides on-time lot count by total lot count. Credit is given per receipt quantity against the schedule, so a partial receipt that arrives on time earns partial credit, and suppliers are penalized for full or partial overdue schedule quantities. The explainer's own example: a PO line scheduled for 100 pieces with 25 received on time gives an on-time count of 0.25 against a total of 0.25, a 100 percent delivery rating for that receipt.

The published rating bands are:

Two details matter to a supplier. A nonconformance only hits the rating in the month it is closed, and an overdue SCAR costs more points than most single defects.

The 2025 Aeronautics changes: where the defect was found

Lockheed Martin Aeronautics changed its quality formula in January 2025, and the published summary shows the direction primes are moving: a defect costs more the later it is found.

The 2025 formula subtracts critical impact deductions and late SCAR deductions from 100, then subtracts defect quantity times an impact factor, scaled against 12 months of receipt quantity times a volume factor.

• Critical impact: 6 points for a quality escalation concern and 11 points for a severe impact, charged each month until the issue is resolved.
• Late or rejected SCAR response: 10 points each, covering both silence and an inadequate answer.
• Impact factor: x2 for supplier impact (SQARs), x4 for source rejections and destination acceptance, x6 for manufacturing floor impact, x8 for final assembly and flight line, and x10 for end user, fleet and sustainment impact.
• Volume factor: a multiplier on receipt quantity that reduces the swing for low-volume suppliers, from 3.35 for 1 to 9 pieces down to small fractions for very high volumes.

The same document revised the rating thresholds and performance periods. Read the current version before quoting a threshold to anyone, because these numbers change.

Quality escapes and PPM

An escape is a nonconformance that left the supplier undetected. Primes weight escapes heavily because the cost grows at every step: a part rejected at receiving costs a return; the same defect found at final assembly costs rework, schedule and an investigation.

Parts per million (PPM) is the common normalized measure: rejected quantity divided by received quantity, times 1,000,000. It lets you compare a supplier shipping ten parts a month with one shipping ten thousand. Use it with care at low volume. One rejected part in a lot of 20 is 50,000 PPM, which says more about lot size than about the supplier, and that is the problem Lockheed Martin's volume factor exists to solve.

Escapes also trigger their own reporting. Appendix QX requires the supplier to disclose a likely escape within 3 business days, or 24 hours for flight safety or suspect counterfeit work. The disclosure and root cause process is covered in corrective action and SCAR.

SCAR responsiveness is scored, not just tracked

How a supplier handles a supplier corrective action request (SCAR) counts almost as much as the defect behind it.

Both Lockheed Martin documents above deduct points for late or rejected SCAR responses. The NGAS SQAR, section 2.9, requires responses on or before the due date and in the format on the request, allows extensions only if requested in writing at least 48 hours before the due date with justification, and reserves the right to verify corrective action on site at the supplier or its sub-tier. Material under corrective action investigation, up to and including verification, may not ship without Northrop Grumman supplier quality authorization, and delegated suppliers are not exempt.

Appendix QX paragraph 2.0 goes further for suppliers with repeat problems: the buyer may require a Zero Defect Plan with key performance indicators that its SQE reviews and accepts.

Approval status, probation and the certification body

Scores feed approval status, and at Boeing they also feed the supplier's AS9100 audit.

Boeing D6-82479 Rev J, section 2, requires the supplier to give its certification body Boeing's Supplier Evaluation Report nonconformities and the supplier's quality and delivery performance data before or during initial, surveillance, special short-notice and recertification audits. If Boeing moves a supplier from Approved to Probation or Disapproved, the supplier must arrange a special short-notice audit with its certification body, citing ISO/IEC 17021-1 paragraph 9.6.4.2 and AS9104-001 paragraph 8.5.10.2, scoped to the nonconformities behind the status change. Boeing also reserves the right to send its own findings and performance data to the certification body.

Lockheed Martin's published bands (approved, conditional, unsatisfactory) work the same way in practice: a conditional supplier can expect tighter inspection, source inspection or a Zero Defect Plan before it sees new work.

AS9101 audits at a high level

SAE AS9101 sets how certification bodies audit 9100-series quality systems. The current edition, AS9101G, was revised in November 2022.

It defines how audits are prepared and executed and what the audit report must contain on conformity and process effectiveness. Certification bodies use it under the IAQG industry scheme, whose rules sit in the AS9104 series, and its requirements take precedence over the general ISO/IEC certification standards where they conflict. Organizations can also use relevant parts for their own internal audits and for second-party audits of their suppliers.

For a buyer, three things follow:

• The audit record exists and is structured. Boeing requires suppliers to keep certificates, audit reports and certification body findings with evidence of corrective action and closure. Appendix QX and the NGAS SQAR both require access to the supplier's OASIS tier 2 data.
• Prime scorecards and certification audits now talk to each other, as Boeing's requirements show.
• A certificate shows the system was audited. It does not show how the supplier performs on your parts. That takes your own data.

APQP and PPAP as front-end monitoring

Some primes now ask for proof of process readiness before production instead of only scoring results afterward.

SAE AS9145, issued November 8, 2016, sets requirements for performing and documenting advanced product quality planning (APQP) and the production part approval process (PPAP), and is designed to work with AS9100, AS9102, AS9103 and AS9110. Appendix QX paragraph 2.4 requires AS9145 compliance when the PO, contract or program calls for it. RTX lists ASQR-09.2, Production Part Approval Process, Rev 03 dated February 10, 2025, among its supplier documents. If your customer flows PPAP, expect it on new part numbers and after major changes, and price it as real engineering work.

What to measure on your own suppliers

A small buyer does not need a prime's formula, but it does need consistent definitions written down before the first late shipment.

Tie the numbers to status in your approved supplier register, review them monthly, and send each supplier its own data. Your receiving inspection records are the raw input, and clean certificates of conformance and AS9102 first articles are what stop paperwork holds from dragging delivery scores. The quality library and supplier quality clauses pages cover the requirements the scores measure against.

Protect your own scorecard

Your supplier's late lot becomes your late lot on your customer's scorecard. When you request a quote, give the PO schedule and your customer's quality clauses. We match the job to suppliers whose certification fits, flow the requirements down, check the cert package against your PO before it ships, and give you one point of contact and one PO even when several shops are involved. A person replies within 1 business day. For the certification question itself, see AS9100 vs ISO 9001 suppliers.

Questions

Related

• What Prime Supplier Quality Clauses Require
• Nonconformance, MRB Authority and Supplier Corrective Action
• Receiving Inspection: What Buyers Check and Why Parts Get Held
• What Drives Aerospace Lead Time and How to Shorten It

Sources

• Lockheed Martin Supplier Scorecard explainer (revision date April 2021)
• Lockheed Martin 2025 Aeronautics Supplier Performance Enhancements (implementation January 2025)
• Boeing D6-82479 Rev J (November 1, 2023), Boeing Quality Management System Requirements for Suppliers
• Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Appendix QX, Supplier Quality Requirements, Rev 10 (released January 1, 2023, last reviewed October 23, 2025)
• Northrop Grumman Aeronautics Systems Supplier Quality Assurance Requirements (SQAR) manual, revision date May 15, 2026
• SAE AS9101G, Requirements for Conducting Audits of Aviation, Space, and Defense Quality Management Systems (revised November 2022)
• SAE AS9145, Requirements for Advanced Product Quality Planning and Production Part Approval Process (November 8, 2016)
• RTX: Pratt & Whitney and Collins Aerospace supplier quality requirements documents (ASQR-01, COL-ASQR-PRO-0003, ASQR-09.2, ASQR-20.1)