Aviation Maintenance: Back Shop: Change Agent

AM: Give us a brief overview of P&W’s MRO business:

JK: Our motto is that we have OEM capabilities with MRO flexibility. We provide unique solutions for Pratt & Whitney and customer engines including parts, repair and overhaul and line maintenance services. We have been growing at a substantial, double-digit rate, 15-20 percent annually. Pratt has established strategic MRO businesses in keeping with UTC business likes. We have a service-based model and our focus on customer relationships comes from that model over the last five years. We are focused internationally and larger growth has been in Asia. Our services compliment a strong engine base, which we have always had.

AM: How are you managing this growth?

JK: We are managing growth by establishing a great leadership team. Fortunately, this is a great place to work. We also promote talent from within the company and that is a magnet for upcoming individuals.

AM: Have you noticed a shortage of technical talent?

JK: There is a crunch; I agree there is an issue. But I am less concerned about this than most. One reason is that our overseas growth and joint ventures with other entities is helpful. Another reason is engines today are much more reliable. They are in for overhauls one-third or one-quarter as often as in years past. They require fewer man hours than previous generation engines. Lean manufacturing has provided the opportunity for step function improvements to our work. We don’t reduce the number of professionals but we do leverage them much more efficiently.

AM: Tell us about your process management system, ACE?

JK: ACE stands for Achieving Competitive Excellence. We have been using ACE for ten years. It’s not just a quality program but also an operating system. When we talk about ACE, we use it as an operating system to run every aspect of our business. We conduct market feedback analysis (MFA). Customers include both internal, external and employees. In P&W, we have a control tower, a master template of how the business is running. We target safety and quality and we measure every day. Everyone has a line of sight as to what they need to do to be successful.

AM: How do you train your employees in the ACE program?

JK: We do the vast majority of training for ACE in-house. Overall we train employees to use what we call the ACE toolbox. There are 11 tools that are used including process, total productive maintenance, root cause analysis and MFA. Then we look for gaps and benchmarks and performance waste in a process called value stream mapping.

The process takes 30 days. We try to determine which steps are added value and which steps are waste. We have the opportunity to reduce a process lead-time leveraging employees to use the toolbox.

AM: How do you gain customer feedback?

JK: We have a sophisticated process. All customers are surveyed two to four times a year. We get feedback on a range of issues that are on the ACE control tower. The surveys are built in a way that all people — the mechanic, buyers, on up, are distilled and pulled back.

AM: You have a couple of joint ventures in progress. Give us an update:

JK: They are going very well. With the alignment of partners, great things can happen. We spend time building relationships. We have broken ground in Shanghai, ordered long lead-time equipment like tooling, test cell and related equipment like bell mouth adapters. Our training program is happening there. We are encouraging spending time in other facilities like Singapore, which we would like to replicate best practices at the Shanghai facility. The first engine will be inducted in the last quarter of this year. In Turkey, we will be transitioning from Turkish Technics to the engine overhaul facility to be located at the Sabiha Gokcen Airport on the Anatolian shore of Istanbul. Construction will begin later this year.

AM: You said you would like to replicate the Singapore facility in Shanghai. Why?

JK: We have 2500 plus employees there. Pratt & Whitney is the single largest foreign aerospace MRO in Singapore. It’s the third largest aerospace company in Singapore. The model is built around supporting our large engine overhaul facility, scope test and with satellite repair facilities to repair combustors, tubes and ducts, engineering and blades. We are partnered with SIA Engineering Company Singapore Airlines for line maintenance as a complementary business. It is an excellent MRO facility.