Should you second-source this before one supplier can ground a programme?
A sole-source or foreign-controlled item — castings and forgings, titanium, permanent magnets, a special process — is one event away from halting a line. The question is which one is worth the cost of a second source, and which can wait.
Settled as the Second-Source Evidence PackSome single points are cheap insurance to second-source; most aren’t worth the spend. The trouble is telling them apart without a traced, evidenced read of where you’re actually single-threaded — and what each dependency would really cost you to lose, in flying hours and in delivery.
Where you’re single-threaded — and what it would cost.
Typical reader: a procurement or operations director.
The materials under your airframe are concentrated — and one control is only paused.
USGS confirmed on 5 February 2026 that the US now runs 100% import-reliant on titanium sponge, with world supply heavily concentrated and the largest aerospace producer under a US denial policy — your own single-source exposure on large airframe and engine forgings. And on 7 November 2025 China suspended, but did not withdraw, its rare-earth and permanent-magnet export controls — the licence regime that reaches any item whose Chinese-origin rare earths are 0.1% of its value is paused only to 10 November 2026, and re-arms after. Both point to second-sourcing before the order book — or a policy reversal — bites. See what changed →