The Power Behind Lycoming

It's been a year and four months since Ian Walsh, a Marine aviator and long-time general aviation pilot with a Harvard master's degree in business administration, moved to Williamsport, Pennsylvania to take over as vice president and general manager of Lycoming Engines. At the time, Lycoming was lagging the industry in technology development and was wrapping up an expensive crankshaft replacement program. And Lycoming workers had been without a union contract for eight years.

What have you accomplished since you arrived?
The first big accomplishment is we assembled a very strong Lycoming leadership team. The second was reaching a union contract on June 17, 2005. It had been eight years. That was causing a lot of day-to-day concerns. We have a new mission statement, Lycoming principles we now communicate and display, [including] teamwork, relentless improvement, quality, six sigma, these are behaviors we're expecting on a day-to-day basis.

What about technology?
Part of the six sigma process is design for six sigma. Any time we introduce a new product or service, Textron Lycoming has a standardized robust process. It allows us to make sure we're meeting all of the details [required], key customer factors, that we're truly designing the right product and designing in the right quality, which is what six sigma is all about.

We introduced a new core policy, new roller tappets, we have a patent on them, and we rolled out the kit program. We are creating the new Advanced Technology Center, designed to be run by engineering, a place where they can do advanced testing and development, new types of fuel, engine configuration, electronic controls, materials. It truly is the powerplant, it's the operating system of the aircraft. [In] the kit program, Lycoming is going to promote that we can customize engines and overhauls. We're going to be a branded service tied to that. We just finished a search for that name and will announce it in January.

What is the status of the current crankshaft situation?
It's going exceptionally well, we spent a lot of time from lessons learned on how to set up, and we communicated clearly with customers, and have had very little complaints and a lot of compliments in terms of overseas repairs. We're about halfway done and hope to be done around the first of the year. It's roughly 1,000 engines, in different configurations. We're paying for removal and replacement and transportation.

Do pilots like roller tappets?
As expected, it's almost like people were [saying] "about time." We incorporated them in a way that makes it very acceptable for people. We're not charging for it, it's part of a normal overhaul and part of new installations. It's been well received. The benefits? If you think about engineering and physical characteristics, there's a reliability and warranty issue that is important, it helps us and the customers. [When] I flew with roller tappets, it just sounds smoother. There's no change in performance, no change in horsepower, it's more of a reliability issue.

Is service improving?
We get a service incident report any time. We track those. Our SIRs overall have come down just this year. There's still long way to go on warranty issues and working on SIRs. When I got here, we had two and a half blackbelts, two here, and a person from Textron Systems. All the Textron businesses that truly get efficient and momentum and discipline and impact, they need one percent six sigma [people]. Today we have seven blackbelts, and now we have over 50 in greenbelt training. We also pushed a lot of six sigma and lean training down to the shop floor. One thing that we definitely are focusing on next year is the service and support strategy. I challenged Todd Stoner [vice president sales and marketing] and his team to take the same rigor into service and support. We have to look at how take service and support to a different level.

Any other technology plans?
Electronic controls we're aggressively pursuing. We see an exciting opportunity to get higher horsepower, to get well above 200 knots above 20,000 feet and compete with small turbines. We clearly understand the need for alternative fuels.

Does that affect customers?
Getting back to maintenance, I was born and raised on a piece of land driving tractors at nine years old. So it has to be reliable, easy to fix, and cost effective. Cost is a big part of this. It's a journey, and we've got clear objectives. That wasn't here before. I'm confident that we'll get there. It makes coming to work fun.