When, after Covid, the world began to reopen in 2022, the surge in demand for aerospace parts arrived like sunrise after a long night - bright, fast, and full of promise. For Avio Aero, that revival came with a sharp lesson: the earliest steps of the supply chain would define who could really deliver. In Borgaretto, just outside Turin, Italy, a foundry long known for craftsmanship and grit became something more - a strategic asset at the heart of Avio Aero’s vertically integrated supply chain.
Borgaretto Casting didn’t just recover after Covid - it transformed. While many raw material suppliers struggled to find their footing, Borgaretto accelerated, growing both volumes and quality. Teams credit one decisive choice: an unshakeable commitment to Flight Deck. At Borgaretto, Flight Deck isn’t a toolkit; it’s how people think, plan, and act—every shift, every line, every day.
Borgaretto is a living example of vertical integration: it supplies more than 90% of the castings needed to produce Avio Aero’s accessory gearboxes and also competes globally.
Borgaretto specializes in niche, high-skill, high-touch castings: complex geometries, rare alloys, tight tolerances, and a high degree of human expertise. Traditionally, those traits can be seen as a vulnerability - hard to scale, hard to standardize. Borgaretto flipped that script.
“When people are the key element of your business and your success, It’s the duty of every leader to nurture the value of their organization and make this value even more valuable” says Patrizia, Plant Leader at Borgaretto.
That belief became a blueprint: People – Product – Process, an integrated approach to rebuild core casting skills and bring knowledge back in-house.
Before the pandemic, industry trends had pushed much of the casting design expertise to a constellation of small, specialized suppliers. Borgaretto focused on execution, while critical know-how - new casting dissection, assembly, and modeling - migrated outward.
Then the crisis hit. In 2022–2023, some suppliers disappeared; others struggled. Dependency became risky. That’s when Borgaretto stepped in not just as a producer, but as a strategic partner - protecting programs like GEnx and T700 and stepping up where others could not.
How did it happen? Borgaretto based its Transformation Journey by putting quality first, every day. The Flight Deck Journey began with hardened safety standards - essential in a foundry both to protect people and to safeguard business continuity. The plant mindset made even more quality non-negotiable: defects became the shared enemy across the organization, tackled through a rigorous daily management system, disciplined problem solving, and action plans that held the gains. “Flight Deck adoption improved quality and process stability; on-time delivery followed naturally, and both internal and external customers valued the outcomes. Furthermore, in 2024 the Borgaretto production site received the prestigious “Site Breakthrough Altitude Award”, recognizing the team’s dedication and operational results.
Borgaretto’s product mix is especially challenging: high-mix/low-rate with high complexity of parts. That demands a depth and breadth of skills that few can sustain. And casting can be a lonely frontier: unique problems, rare materials, few peers to call for help. In Borgaretto, that isolation didn’t create despair; it sparked ideas.
In 2023, two programs reshaped the talent base: a rigorous technical curriculum delivered with external experts - including renowned casting authority from a UK University - and “I Love Casting,” a culture and soft-skills program for new hires designed to build confidence, communication, and pride in the craft.
The results came fast: in just two years, more than 20 new engineers helped several new industrializations, more than 150 problem solving per year and spread modern software simulation capabilities. And the clearest signal of all: people are staying at Borgaretto because they see impact, growth, and purpose.
Borgaretto broadened its simulation toolkit - more models, more scenarios, more predictive capability. By anticipating defects digitally and earlier, teams reduced trial-and-error, shortened cycles, and focused expertise where it mattered most.
Something else changed as well: investing to protect the customer. Instead of chasing internal efficiency metrics alone, Borgaretto prioritized investments that directly improved customer outcomes. “A standout example is a newly automated targeting system to reduce dimensional variation - protecting customers from scrap and the downstream costs of rework. Meanwhile, the plant never stopped hunting for safety risks and driving improvements to ensure stable, reliable operations” underscored Antonio Villalba, CoE Leader at Borgaretto.
Borgaretto’s transformation isn’t just a plant story; it’s a supply chain story. By re-centering expertise, enhancing quality at the source, and aligning investments to customer metrics, Borgaretto strengthened Avio Aero’s resilience exactly when the industry needed it most. That’s the promise of vertical integration: when strategy meets craftsmanship, customers feel the difference in delivery, reliability, and trust.
“Today, Borgaretto is more than a foundry. It’s a competitive advantage - one built by people who believe that excellence is learned, practiced, and shared,” concludes Patrizia.
As demand continues to rise, Borgaretto will keep doing what it does best: making the complex possible - and making it reliable.
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Avio Aero is a GE Aerospace company that designs, manufactures and maintains components and propulsion systems for civil and military aviation.
