Leonardo strengthens the national helicopter supply chain

The first deliveries will be made as early as the start of 2027, once all the necessary certifications have been completed by the end of this year. The Bologna-based Poggipolini Group, through its subsidiary Aviomec in Mornago, in the province of Varese, is one of 20 companies that, over the past two years, have signed agreements with the Leonardo Group, through its Helicopters division, as part of the ‘Crescere Insieme’ programme, which aims to develop and strengthen a national vertical flight supply chain in Italia by involving Italian companies in the design and manufacture of components for the group’s civil helicopters.

The latest partnerships were signed yesterday with five SMEs from Lombardy at the Lombardy Regional Government’s headquarters, where the programme had first been presented two years ago, thanks in part to the support provided by the Regional Government in identifying companies capable of meeting Leonardo’s technological and industrial requirements: the Helicopters division purchases supplies worth around €3 billion every year, 65 per cent of which currently comes from foreign suppliers. Hence the need (but also the strategic aim) to develop technological and industrial expertise within the country in order to gradually reduce dependence on foreign suppliers for so-called ‘critical supplies’ (‘bottleneck items’), bringing a significant proportion of this production back to Italia.

“This project is of strategic importance for the country and, for us as a region, has a twofold value,” said Guido Guidesi, the Lombardy Regional Councillor for Economic Development, “ on the one hand, it consolidates Leonardo’s presence in our region by strengthening the supply chain with new Lombardy-based suppliers of goods and services. On the other, it creates new opportunities for development, economic spillover and employment for the companies involved.” Leonardo is, in fact, already present in Lombardy with six sites across Varese, Milan and Brescia, specialising in the helicopter, aeronautics, space, electronics and cybersecurity sectors.

The role of the Lombardy Region was that of a ‘connector’, the councillor explained, between ‘Leonardo’s need to find new players in the supply chain, and that of Lombardy-based companies to grow and acquire technological expertise in strategic sectors’.

One of the interesting aspects of the ‘Growing Together’ programme is that it also involves companies specialising in sectors other than aerospace – or, at any rate, other than the helicopter sector – and indeed provides financial, and, above all, technological support from Leonardo to cover the costs of certifying the platforms and to facilitate the development and testing phases of the components. The partner companies, on the other hand, bear the costs of corporate and production-line certification, non-recurring activities and industrialisation.