Landmark Acquires Scottsdale-based Corporate Jets Inc.

Landmark Aviation announced the acquisition of Corporate Jets, Inc., of Scottsdale, Arizona, in early April. Corporate Jets Inc. was a full service business aviation fixed base operation and aircraft maintenance, sales, and charter operation.

The FBO is an authorized service center for Pratt & Whitney and Honeywell aircraft engines, adding to Landmark Aviation's avionics, engine, and airframe maintenance capabilities. The center also offers 24-hour service, which Landmark will continue, including aircraft maintenance, charter, sales, and management, and is an authorized service center for Learjet and Cirrus.

Full FBO services are available at Scottsdale, including fuel, pilot lounge, crew cars, catering, oxygen, and aircraft interior and exterior cleaning. The operation offers 87,000 square feet of hangar space and four executive hangars.

The facility is on more than five acres of land and has more than 10,000 square feet of space dedicated to aircraft maintenance hangars. It has 13,000 square feet of office and customer space.

"Scottsdale is a strategic acquisition for Landmark, expanding our maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) and FBO network," said Roger Wolfe, Chief Executive Officer, Landmark Aviation.

Eclipse Aviation and the Gainesville-Alachua County Regional Airport Authority held a groundbreaking ceremony on April 3, 2006 to begin construction of the Eclipse Aviation factory service center in Gainesville, Florida. The Gainesville facility will be part of a network of seven U. S. factory service centers for Eclipse 500 maintenance and support.

The service center will be Eclipse's first facility outside Albuquerque. The new 61,000 square-foot facility is scheduled to be complete in early 2007. The factory service center will consist of 45,000 square-feet of hangar space that can hold up to 12 Eclipse 500 aircraft at a time. Additional support areas include a 10,800 square-foot maintenance section and a 5,400 square-foot customer service area. The facility will accommodate multiple shift operations. Eclipse technicians at this facility will be able to accomplish all Eclipse 500 scheduled and unscheduled maintenance, including work on the Pratt & Whitney Canada PW610F engines.

The $11.2 million construction project will receive almost 50 percent of the funding from the Florida Department of Transportation's (FDOT) Aviation Work Program. "Gainesville and the state of Florida have given tremendous support that will allow us to construct a state-of-the-art factory service center to serve all of our Eclipse 500 customers including Dayjet in the southeast United States," said Michael McConnell, vice president of sales and product support.

Eclipse Breaks Ground on First Service Center

Eclipse Aviation and the Gainesville-Alachua County Regional Airport Authority held a groundbreaking ceremony on April 3, 2006 to begin construction of the Eclipse Aviation factory service center in Gainesville, Florida. The Gainesville facility will be part of a network of seven U. S. factory service centers for Eclipse 500 maintenance and support.

The service center will be Eclipse's first facility outside Albuquerque. The new 61,000 square-foot facility is scheduled to be complete in early 2007. The factory service center will consist of 45,000 square-feet of hangar space that can hold up to 12 Eclipse 500 aircraft at a time. Additional support areas include a 10,800 square-foot maintenance section and a 5,400 square-foot customer service area. The facility will accommodate multiple shift operations. Eclipse technicians at this facility will be able to accomplish all Eclipse 500 scheduled and unscheduled maintenance, including work on the Pratt & Whitney Canada PW610F engines.

The $11.2 million construction project will receive almost 50 percent of the funding from the Florida Department of Transportation's (FDOT) Aviation Work Program. "Gainesville and the state of Florida have given tremendous support that will allow us to construct a state-of-the-art factory service center to serve all of our Eclipse 500 customers including Dayjet in the southeast United States," said Michael McConnell, vice president of sales and product support.

MCA Solves Supply Chain Challenges

"The sale of spare parts and aftermarket service contracts is a huge profit opportunity," said Bob Salvucci, president and CEO of supply chain software developer MCA Solutions. But modern aerospace companies have found that the business of managing the distribution of spares is increasingly complex and not amenable to standard forecasting methods.

MCA Solutions was founded in 1999 by academics at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania who were researching spare parts supply chains. With the price of computing dropping dramatically and manufacturers taking on more of the service of their products, MCA's founders decided that "they should start a company specializing in supply chain software," said Salvucci, who joined MCA Solutions two years ago after 25 years working for IBM and 10 years for SAP. In the service business, he explained, supply chains are becoming more complex. If customers want quick service, then manufacturers have to pre-position spares in the field. "That's where companies will make the most money, servicing their products," he said. MCA Solutions is helping companies reduce spares inventories by 30 to 50 percent, according to Salvucci.

"Aerospace is one of the largest opportunities," he said. Manufacturers are always looking for ways to cut costs while adding new products and services. Where MCA Solutions can help is as a "decision-support product" that can interface with typical enterprise resource planning (ERP) software products at large manufacturing firms. Salvucci calls this "reverse logistics," which means using the MCA software for spares forecasting and optimization. The latter function tells the manufacturer the best place for spares to be stored to help support customers, and where to send components for repairs to achieve the most efficient use of resources. "There are two pieces to it," he explained. "It's a strategy product, for forecasting and positioning of inventory. And [it's for] tactics, how to adjust when something has happened."

Recently, Rockwell Collins went live with MCA Solutions software to manage the company's worldwide spare parts inventory. The MCA software interfaces with Rockwell Collins's SAP ERP system.

Salvucci plans to continue pursuing opportunities in the aerospace and defense markets, in line with three trends identified by MCA Solutions and released at the company's annual user conference. For the defense market, Salvucci sees more emphasis on performance-based logistics, which provides incentives to service providers to manage long-term maintenance costs through cost-per-flight-hour-type programs. Aerospace companies are moving away from a product-centric focus to focusing on customers and what they need to operate aircraft successfully, such as service contracts (cost-per-hour, performance-based logistics) that help deliver more aircraft availability. Finally, manufacturers with widely spread supply chains need visibility of all components in those chains, including spares and customer requirements.