COVER STORY Surfin` gas Heatric is booming

Transcription

A MAGAZINE
FOR EMPLOYEES
WINTER 2012/13
COVER STORY
Surfin’ gas
Heatric is booming
PLUS
Learning to see
Allahverdi spearheads
group-wide production system
Soldier safety
Meggitt gets up close
and personal
MAAP on the map
Model factory doubles
Singapore capacity
Growing next generation talent
Our graduate recruitment
drive is working
20:20 vision
Jackson plans tech
development 20 years ahead
TR
GGIT EVIEW
ME
G GIT
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S P E CI
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Continuing on our journey Our Chief Executive on next steps in the pursuit of excellence
2
Learning to see
Amir Allahverdi, Meggitt’s new Group Operations Director, on how a group-wide production system will deliver sustainable improvements to quality and on-time delivery
20
FACTORY FOCUS
Surfin’ gas
The outlook for Heatric, a key player in Meggitt’s growing energy business, just keeps getting better
34
Delivering dividends for decades
Top contract wins from 2012
36
MAAP on the map
With airlines based on Asia continuing to expand rapidly, Meggitt has doubled capacity with a new model factory
42
Wanted: Bright ideas to boost
Meggitt’s future
Meet Keith Jackson, Meggitt’s new Group Technology Director
45
“Wellness” pilot launches in the US
Meggitt sponsors points-mean-prizes
employee health and fitness programme
46
Smart engineering saves lives
02
LEARNING
TO SEE
20
FACTORY FOCUS
SURFIN’ GAS
42
BRIGHT
IDEAS
46
How Meggitt products protect our armed forces
MEGGITT
GRADUATES
REACH FOR
THE SKY
THE GRADUATES
52
Bright prospects are the best
recruiting sergeant
Why they are joining
54
Graduates meet gurus
Great minds exist beyond the campus
58
Graduates reach for the sky
Spotlight on career success for
existing recruits
61
Bookmark our story
The latest on our publications,
on-line and in print
Inside
TR
GGIT EVIEW
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52
G GIT
BRIGHT
PROSPECTS
AL
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SAVING LIVES
D
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Continuing on
our journey
Meggitt is on a journey. It has come a long way in the past few years but
must travel further and faster in the
years ahead, says Chief Executive Terry Twigger. R
eaders of this year’s Review can reflect on another
year of progress for our expanding group. We have
continued to invest in plant and the people who run
it, operations management and technology development.
Heatric is doubling its size on the wave of the new dash for
gas in remote oilfields. Our Singapore facility has doubled
its size with a new model factory capable of meeting the
boom in Asia Pacific airline business. Productivity gains that last
Amir Allahverdi, our new Group Operations Director,
will spearhead one of the most far-reaching initiatives
since Transformation three years ago when we reorganised
47 facilities into five new divisions, streamlining our
relationships with customers and integrating the
management of complementary technologies. With a highly
experienced team, he will launch the Meggitt Production
System across the group in 2013, ensuring every business
meets the standards of excellence required by our
customers—and meets them consistently. As he says on
page 5, we are grateful to those “heroes” who work above
and beyond to deliver products on time and to the required
quality. However, short-term tactical successes are not
enough—the competition is too fierce. We must create a
continuous improvement culture that will enable our people
to deliver productivity gains that last.
This cannot be done overnight and without extra
resources. We have already recruited new staff and
will be hiring more. Where we need to make capital
investments, we will do so. Pilots will ensure we create a
Meggitt Production System capable of serving our diverse
businesses and customers. As Shubhayu Chakraborty,
Managing Director of our Securaplane Arizona-based
facility in which we are piloting the system, observes (see
page 8), we are engaged in a marathon, not a sprint.
Gold standards
Meggitt businesses will achieve certifications for a
range of operations excellence measures, progressing
through strict Bronze, Silver and Gold standards. This
requirement will present professional development
opportunities for all involved, not least employees who work
on our production lines. Their expertise and know-how
will become highly visible, functioning as a cornerstone of
production system success. They will have their say as they
co-develop solutions to pressing problems with managers
and supervisors and be responsible, as Amir says: “for the
thousands of little observations leading to thousands of
little improvements that make great factories.”
Orders for model factories
All this is critical to ensuring the pledges our sales
people make to customers can be fulfilled. Ultimately,
integrating the Meggitt Production System with all parts of
the business will be essential. This includes the work of our
maturing Strategy, Sales & Marketing teams. As Executive
Vice President Lorraine Rienecker writes on page 19, new
appointments in contracts, programme management and
key customer account direction will ensure our model
factories are packed with orders, processed though clearly-defined, well-managed, profitable agreements.
Technology leadership
While Amir is taking steps to strengthen Meggitt’s long-term manufacturing capability, Keith Jackson, our new
group head of technology, is looking ahead even further. He
is working on a technology vision and plan to deliver what
Meggitt customers will want in up to 20 years’ time. Such
technology leadership will involve a perpetual effort, liaising
closely with customers to produce the new and advanced
products that will be the lifeblood of Meggitt’s future.
He’ll be working with talent across Meggitt which
includes those young men and women who have joined our
first graduate scheme. Our first intake are well into their
assignments and we look forward to recruiting another
batch of top graduates from the best universities in the
Autumn. Ensuring we grow our talent base at the grass
roots of engineering is another example of Meggitt looking
to the future.
Meggitt’s course is set and we remain committed to
ploughing a significant part of our income stream into
building and reinforcing our infrastructure, capabilities,
management and employees. The Meggitt Production
System is our most far-reaching management initiative
to date and absolutely essential to future growth and
profitability. REVIEW | WINTER 2012/13
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Performance excellence is about delivery,
cost, quality, inventory, safety and
productivity in equal measure.
Meggitt Production System
COST
DELIVERY
QUALITY
PRODUCTIVITY
INVENTORY
SAFETY
2
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REVIEW | WINTER 2012/13
OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE
LEARNING
TO SEE
Amir Allahverdi, Meggitt’s new Group Operations Director,
has spent a lifetime learning to see what goes on in factories.
After nearly three decades improving individual production
lines and integrating global production and sourcing systems
for aerospace giants GE, Lockheed Martin, AlliedSignal and
Honeywell, he says: “It’s the thousands of little observations
leading to thousands of little improvements that make a great
factory. Everyone feels accountable for success and everyone’s
contribution, no matter how apparently small, has value. All you
have to do is learn how to see.”
With his new team—Louis Chavez, Bernie Stevens, Ian McMurray and Martin
Calland, all profiled over the next few pages—Allahverdi is building the
foundations for a production system that can be standardised across the
group’s facilities. The initiative—scalable to accommodate the strengths
and size of every Meggitt business—is kicking off with a pilot at Meggitt’s
Arizona-based aircraft safety and security business Securaplane in
February 2013.
Based on advanced Lean operating system thinking, the Meggitt Production
System will harness the creativity of teams to solve problems and improve
performance, starting with those who make our products. Capturing and
implementing productivity improvement ideas; adhering to the critical principle
of standard work; promoting transparency through the visual factory; and
developing an effective system for sharing best practice across the group are
just some of the tools and techniques that will be deployed within a revitalised
continuous improvement culture. This will ensure that when every Meggitt factory
achieves certification within the Meggitt Production System award scheme for
peerless performance in the marketplace, they will maintain it for the long-term.
“When a business wins a medal, it will have passed a test for sustainability,”
says Allaverdi.
A
nd the purpose of this quest for production perfection? On-time delivery
of product to the required specification has always been an imperative.
Today, Meggitt’s reach is such that key customers can be serviced by
several group facilities. A shortfall in the performance of one detracts from
the reputation of another. A group-wide production system will ensure that
all Meggitt factories are equipped to adhere to the ever higher performance
standards being imposed on it by key customers. That is how performance
in terms of ‘Q&D’ (quality and on-time delivery) becomes a critical win factor
as Meggitt Sensing Systems proved when a quantum leap in service secured
valuable new business across the LEAP engine family in 2012 (see page 34).
Meet the team
Amir Allahverdi
Group Operations Director
Louis Chavez
Director of Meggitt Production Systems
Ian McMurray
Group Quality Director
Bernie Stevens
Operations Intelligence &
Management System Director
Martin Calland
Group Head of Procurement
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Profile
01/05
Amir Allahverdi
Louis Chavez
Ian McMurray
Bernie Stevens
Martin Calland
allahverdi’s story begins in tehran
in the 1960s and an early obsession with
aircraft. Picture a five-year old boy on the
roof of his family’s house drinking in the
drama of the Phantom F5 military jets
thundering overhead from a nearby airport.
“Most kids my age would be plugging their
ears and crying their eyes out at the roar
of these supersonic beasts. I was just
looking up and drawing energy from them.”
After that, he spent his childhood and early
teens taking things apart and putting them
back together—everything from simple
radios to car engine components. And
when he wasn’t doing that, he was bugging
craftsmen on how to make things on his
architect father’s construction sites.
At 16, as he was nearing graduation
from a technical school, his father
reluctantly identified that a country with
no aerospace schools or aerospace
manufacturing had little to offer the young
aviation enthusiast. He was sent to Boston,
Massachusetts, where friends with sons
of Allahverdi’s age gave him a home. After
becoming an FAA-accredited aircraft
mechanic, he ‘dreamed bigger’ and took a
degree in Applied Science in Aeronautical
Technology at the Wentworth Institute
of Technology.
As an undergraduate, Allahverdi
undertook an internship in a sheet
metal fabrication factory, learning early
lessons in how not to do things. “I ran a
sheet metal press for industrial heating
equipment. I pressed metal, ran copper
tubes through it, water tested it and piled
it up, day after day. I was doing 10 hours
overtime a week, building too much and
building it the wrong way. There was a
better, faster way but nobody asked me:
‘Hey, what do you think?’ There was no
system, no process, no supervision and no
leadership.” For Allahverdi today, a healthy
factory is one in which the experience
of those working on a production line is
regarded by managers as essential to
production efficiency.
Tony McCann, Operations Director, Meggitt Polymers & Composites, Rockmart flanked by
Bernie Stevens (left) and Amir Allahverdi (right)
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Phantom F5 military
jets thundered
overhead. Most kids
my age would be
plugging their ears and
crying their eyes out.
I was just looking up
and drawing energy
from them.
A
fter making the wrong stuff in sheet
metal, he concluded his university
career with four GE internships
in Northern Massachusetts—and a
permanent job offer that started his career
trajectory in aerospace. He rotated through
design, quality and process engineering but
‘great mentors’ pushed him off the course
he had set himself in engineering toward
problem-solving and turnaround roles.
He acquired a reputation over the next five
years for getting things done, propelling
plants to new levels of performance against
strict measures of delivery, cost, quality,
inventory and productivity. He took on more
senior management positions in plants of
increasing size and complexity.
Allahverdi was, in his own words,
“a typical driven GE manager”. It should be
noted that he was with the business when
management history was being made by
Jack Welch, architect of an aggressive
simplification and consolidation drive
and GE’s youngest ever chairman and
managing director. “I was a student of his
methodology and his teaching. It was about
single-mindedly driving whole systems—
people, parts and processes. I will never
CV Amir Allahverdi
1996 – January 2012
Honeywell
New Jersey, Arizona, Switzerland, China
Progressively senior roles in operations
management; quality and Six Sigma; and
global sourcing for AlliedSignal.
During the latter’s merger with
Honeywell, was awarded key international
responsibilities involving supply
chain integration; production system
implementation; and team creation and
development.
Ian McMurray and Amir Allahverdi (left and centre) are shown a brand-new robot that is
saving labour, time and improving quality at the Meggitt Aircraft Braking Systems site in
Coventry, of which Roy Deakin, pictured right, is Director. The robot, which cost a little
over £500,000, fully integrates cloth cutting and disc lay-up, eliminating
queuing between these sequential functions and making the placing of cloth on the disc
consistently accurate.
forget the discipline of going into work
every day at 5 a.m. and saying: “OK, where
are the parts and where are the people?”
We solved problems at our daily production
meetings in real time. We didn’t take no for
an answer, whether inside the factory or
from our supply base.”
Allahverdi brought his own approach
to this: “I learned quickly that you have
to have systems that enable continuous
engagement with people. I had a few bosses
who said ‘go kick ass and fire a few people’
but there were other ways of achieving a
goal—talking to individuals, not disciplining
them. I learned that if you drove too hard,
you got a one-time result and eventual
burn-out. I learned that you shouldn’t have
systems that reward heroism versus
long-term sustainable solutions.”
T
he Welch model may have had its
day for 21st century manufacturing
but it was critical in the early
1980s and 1990s when he transformed
an underperforming, very traditional
American company into one of the largest
of the Fortune 10. Welch’s aphorisms were
legion and many resonated with Allahverdi
as a tyro leader. Some still do, he says, like
the imperative to change before you have
to. “That never goes out of fashion.”
Allahverdi acknowledges the solid
foundation GE gave him in how things
should be manufactured. “More than that,
it showed how you overcome adversity and
execute, regardless of barriers. It gave me
the opportunity to learn how to energise,
motivate and move people forward.”
GE boosted Allahverdi’s management
education. He remains deeply indebted to
GE’s management university, Crotanville’s
Welch Leadership Center.
So who does Allahverdi read and
follow now? ”You’ve got to build a library in
life,” he says, joking that while he is done
with reading books, he’s drawn from an
extensive collection from GE’s evolutionary
phases, the integration of AlliedSignal with
Honeywell, plant-by-plant turnaround work
across Europe and a from-scratch group
production system implementation in China.
ge later sold its aerospace unit in the
early 1990s and Allahverdi continued
his quest to create the perfect factory
at the likes of Ametek, Lockheed Martin
and Honeywell where he spent the 13
years before joining Meggitt. He remains,
however, always the pragmatist. Allahverdi
does not believe in quality for its own sake.
Excellence in quality and delivery must be
matched by business performance. “There
is no point in being 100% on time with zero
quality escapes when you are doing this by
buying a ton more inventory than you need
and because you have hired 20 inspectors
to inspect everything.” Performance
excellence is about safety, delivery, cost,
quality, inventory and productivity in
equal measure. >
Last role: Vice President, Integrated
Supply Chain, Asia Pacific, Honeywell
International.
1992 – 1996
Lockheed Martin
Massachusetts
Programme management, International
Systems; and operations management,
precision-machining (Martin Marietta)
utilising hard-won turnaround experience
in quality and its cost, on-time delivery
and labour relations.
1985 – 1993
General Electric
Massachusetts
Starting as an industrial engineer,
progressed rapidly through a wide
range of increasingly challenging
operational management roles from
aircraft instruments to Phalanx Close-In
Weapon Systems, with a two-year stint
at GE disposal Ametek, managing quality
assurance in aerospace production.
2001
MBA, Technology Management
and MS, Management
New Jersey Institute of Technology
1985
BS, Mechanical Engineering and
Associate in Applied Science in
Aeronautical Technology
Wentworth Institute of Technology
5
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The cries to join GE alumni who had
moved to AlliedSignal became hard to
ignore, taking him to the West Coast of the
United States and “the same problems,
the same processes but on a much larger
scale”, eventually specialising in the then
next big thing—Six Sigma—and quality.
“For the first time in my career, I wasn’t
shipping product. I was a so-called thought
leader”, pursuing certification in those
process improvement tools and strategies
originally developed by Motorola.
He obtained an MBA, helping him
for the part he began to play on the
bigger stages offered by the momentous
AlliedSignal Honeywell integration, such
as a global sourcing role with a $5 billion
budget. He recalls: “It was a dramatic
transformation where Honeywell separated
back and front office. Business presidents
focused on growth and end-markets.
They said to people like me: ‘You go figure
out operations. We’re going to grow the
company.’” Regional management models
were part of this thinking. After acquitting
himself well in sourcing, Allahverdi
returned to operations, this time improving
and standardising production systems at
17 sites across Europe from the company’s
Swiss hub.
T
he case for change was compelling
and it was clear that loss-making
businesses would have to be
transformed using production systems. It
was a challenging brief. These companies
had been managed from a distance and
their cultures were not widely understood.
He recalls it wasn’t easy to deal with the
suspicion in one factory that a rise in
efficiency meant job losses or that analysis
of existing processes was a lever to modify
I had a few bosses who said ‘go kick ass and
fire a few people’ but there were other ways
of achieving a goal
6
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employee terms. Wary of appearing to be
imposing an “American” approach, he kept
his communication simple and inclusive.
He emphasises: “We were in business to
succeed together,” recognising the only way
to allay their fears was to get on with it and
show them the results. “It worked. After
that, success bred success.”
Some three years later, Allahverdi
was rewarded with the opportunity to
grow Honeywell’s Asia Pacific business.
In China, he established, from scratch,
the production sites and system needed
to position the supply chain for the high
growth levels the region was experiencing.
This included delivering C919 aircraft
content and low-cost manufacturing
capacity for the rest of the group. Not
everything fitted, he acknowledges. “Some
things work there. Some don’t. I’ve learned
from the experience.”
Below: Wheel and brake module manager
Keith Jenkinson briefing Amir Allahverdi
during one of his ‘deep dives’ at Meggitt
Aircraft Braking Systems, Coventry.
He is relishing the prospect of helping
to take Meggitt forward. There have been
three significant integrations since 2007,
leaving Meggitt bigger and more complex.
“It is ready to advance its business models,
advance in its production systems and
become more global, with a footprint and a
vision that makes sense. I want to be part
of this. It’s what I do best.”
O
ver the last nine months, Allahverdi
has been walking the group’s shop
floors, gemba-style, where the work
is done, seeing with his own eyes. “Learning
to see is a powerful thing,” he says. “It can
definitely be taught.” He asks us to imagine
walking him around our homes for a safety
check. “Isn’t that cable frayed?” he asks.
“Perhaps you are so used to it, you don’t
see it anymore? But I don’t ask you if you
are blind. Instead I walk around your house
with you and we look together at the catch
on the ladder you need for changing light
bulbs and the TV cable running across the
carpet and I will reward you for tidying
these things and fixing them. In the factory
context, it becomes your job to look for
problems—things that detract from safety
and efficiency.”
While Allahverdi is well-educated, he
is no lofty Six Sigma obsessive or theorist.
He knows what dirt under the fingernails
feels like. When someone at one of the
factories has prioritised quality in a list
of manufacturing issues, Allahverdi will
have been the one to have noticed sensitive
parts stored next to vibrating machines
as a primary source of defects. That dusty
cable curled in a corner, while apparently
harmless in itself, tells him a great deal
about how that factory works across the
board. As he says, he was taught to see.
irrespective of division or business unit.”
The team is building on the QD
(quality and on-time delivery) programmes
instituted in 2011 by Meggitt’s Operating
Board before Allahverdi’s arrival and
identifying which sites might be ready for
the first set of Meggitt production system
pilot schemes being launched during 2013.
“It is important that the production system
we develop is wholly about Meggitt. It will
be scalable and flexible enough to reflect
the diversity of our sites and their outputs
and it will be co-developed through the pilot
scheme,” he confirms.
A
llahverdi understands a site’s culture
as soon as he enters a factory
lobby—from the way a visitor is
received and briefed to whether the site
cares about how it looks to its employees,
never mind visitors.
Allahverdi paints a picture of the ideal
“’Gold’ factory where there is rhythm and
rigour.” Standard work—doing things the
right way, repeatedly, based on clearly
documented processes—applies as
much to leaders and supervisors as to
those working on the production line.
If something fails or there is a quality
problem, errors can be isolated quickly.
“If I am a plant manager, I am at the
site early in the morning in my workwear,
safety glasses and shoes. My first stop is
the Measure of Performance board, where I
look at what happened yesterday and what’s
happening today with the team that has
already walked the floor and collected the
performance data. My schedule is posted
outside my office. People know what I do
all day.”
Shadow boarding ensures that on
trolleys or on cell walls, there is a place for
Whoever you are at Meggitt, whatever you do,
you really do have the power to change things
Allahverdi’s lone factory visits at the
beginning of the year became more intense
and more wide-ranging when he acquired
a team. Established Meggitt hands Bernie
Stevens (operations management), Martin
Calland (procurement) and Ian McMurray
(quality) and ex-Honeywell newcomer,
Louis Chavez (production systems)
expanded his reach. “Over 18 sites, we have
been coaching where coaching has been
needed and learning from best practice
where we found it. We developed the idea of
horizontal learning, inviting Meggitt people
to share expertise with those who need it,
every tool and every tool is in its place. Lost
or misplaced tools are instantly noted. The
factory is ‘visible’—no one person owns a
process or piece of knowledge. Metrics,
tools and processes are so transparent
that it takes only a 30-minute daily walk to
understand the health of the factory and
apply rapid problem solving techniques.
All workers know when their supervisor
will visit and will ready with ideas for fixes.
Common management language
makes best practice sharing possible
between factories and there are systems
through which to share it.
Engaging the hearts and minds of
every individual, bringing about ideas that
make the business more competitive,
boils down to this daily experience of
rewarding work, says Allahverdi. “It comes
from skilled, charismatic and respectful
managers who give those who report to
them credit for thinking for themselves.
What needs to feel universally different
across the Meggitt shop floor is: “I know
I can tell someone that what I am doing is
wrong and that there is a better way to
do it.
“We have learned from Japanese
automotive companies that the cornerstone
of a successful production system—and
perhaps the most significant factor—is
the culture of people engagement that
pervades every level of a company.
“These companies will happily open
their doors to factory tours from peers and
competitors because you can’t see or take a
picture of a high-performance culture. It is
in the hearts and minds of every employee.
This power, once released, should bring
about continuous improvement ideas every
day. Instead of 30 managers having ideas
and implementing change, let’s have the
200 who report to them doing the same
thing. Management in turn must have a
system in place, normally in the form
of a kaizen, to evaluate and act upon
those ideas.”
Allahverdi bemoans the years when
companies would send the experts in
with pokayoke, Lean, kanban and Andon
cords to write the policies, procedures
and processes. “All seemed well. Three
years later, you went to the same factory
and found things had fallen apart, the
supervisor had left, the production line had
lost its disciplines and quality had taken
a nosedive. ‘Thou shalt do it that way’ is
unsustainable. Continuous improvement
must come from within.”
His belief that everyone in a business
should feel accountable for success is
profound. It embraces the hundreds of little
operations that stop people from tripping
over a mat, to having to reach too far for
a tool. It includes ensuring visitors, along
with latest performance metrics, are given
a very clear message about the importance
Meggitt attributes to safety as they are
presented with those glasses, those shoes
and the fire exit map. It extends to all parts
of the business, not just manufacturing and
the functions that directly support it. With
absolute conviction, Allahverdi declares:
“Whoever you are at Meggitt, whatever
you do, you really do have the power to
change things.” •
7
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Securaplane first
to pilot change
Having completed its readiness assessment in
November, Securaplane will roll out the Meggitt
Production System in the first week of February 2013.
the company is a near-ideal pilot site, says Securaplane’s
President Shubhayu Chakraborty: “We are Meggitt in microcosm:
a compact business, on a single site, but with every process
present. We can deploy and test everything that the Meggitt
Production System has to offer, right here.”
Securaplane is also culturally well-prepared. “We started our
own ‘Lean conversion’ three years ago. We already have strong
employee engagement with continuous improvement, and everyone
is comfortable with the concepts, practices and ‘lingo’. We don’t
need a huge sales pitch to get people fired up. We can get into
deployment right away.”
Lean has already been good to Securaplane—big improvements
in delivery, quality and inventory—but it has also revealed the limits
of going it alone. “The Meggitt Production System will unlock so
much more in the way of resources and ideas, giving us access to
best practice backed by excellent training materials—all of which
we have helped to develop. Meggitt group support means we can
do everything so much faster and better. The Meggitt Production
Lean has already been good to
Securaplane—big improvements
in delivery, quality and inventory
—but it has also revealed the limits
of going it alone. The Meggitt
Production System will unlock so
much more in the way of resources
and ideas
everyone understands their own commitment to the work process,
and takes responsibility for delivering it. DLA also provides an
efficient and transparent path to escalate issues, ensuring they are
solved quickly and completely at the right level.
There’s great emphasis on what’s called ‘visual management’
or the ‘Gemba walk’; managers going to where the work is being
done to see for themselves what’s going on. Chakraborty: “On the
shop floor, for example, a production cell will know its output on
an hourly basis, how that relates to plan and what obstacles are
causing any shortfall. Cells report to ‘focus factory managers’ who
visit regularly and can see quickly if a cell has a problem it can’t
solve for itself. The focus factory manager is then responsible for
doing whatever’s needed to solve that problem.”
The hour-by-hour work of production cells—Securaplane
has ten, operating in flow, not batch, for reasons of efficiency
and quality—is governed by the organisation and cleanliness
framework known as 6S (Sort, Set in order, Shine, Standardise,
Sustain, Safety). 6S increases cell efficiency and facilitates visual
This is a well-made programme. If you embrace this system
and learn from it, the results will follow
System is now essential to Securaplane’s drive for competitive
advantage through higher performance,” says Chakraborty.
Vince Bartuccio, Securaplane’s Continuous Improvement
Leader, previously site leader for continuous improvement at
Bombardier’s service centre in Tucson, speaks from experience:
“This a well-made programme. If you embrace this system and
learn from it, the results will follow.”
For all Securaplane’s continuous improvement experience,
extensive preparations for roll-out have emphasised maximising
staff awareness just the same: “We’ve been running lots of
communications and training activity—all-hands meetings,
electronic presentations on the shop floor, update sessions with the
senior team—explaining how performance is managed in a Lean
environment, looking at the training matrices, and putting people
through our concentrated immersion programme on the concepts
and culture of Lean.”
Securaplane has been helping trial and refine Meggitt
Production System specifics for months now. “Our shop floor
people have closely evaluated the daily layered accountability,
the 6S framework and the principles of ‘visual management’ that
are at the heart of the MPS,” explains Bartuccio. “Before that,
multi-functional teams worked through the new training modules,
helping to finalise the detail.”
Daily layered accountability (DLA) is the name given to the
nested structure of responsibility and accountability in which
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management by bringing structure and discipline to the ‘what,
where, when and how?’ of materials and tools storage and use.
“It’s really a way of life for the cells,” says Bartuccio. “If you live 6S
at home, your garage never looks like a tip and you can always find
your car keys!”
Securaplane already runs a programme of regular kaizens:
two a month, very focused, lasting three or four days. They always
include senior leadership (emphasising the importance of the
process), as well as representatives from across the functions
to recruit fresh perspectives and help spread the cultural
aspects of continuous improvement throughout the organisation.
Chakraborty: “Under the Meggitt Production System, our kaizens
will be much more shop-floor orientated, looking at standard work
geared mostly to improving productivity—though also quality and
delivery—and aimed at continually improving the match between
our production cycle time and customer demand.”
The Securaplane team is now putting the finishing touches to
their roll-out plan for February. Employees will notice the Meggitt
Production System difference immediately, says Chakraborty:
“We are kicking off with multiple simultaneous kaizens involving
one-third of the company.” He acknowledges the impact on results
will take longer to feed through, as competitiveness benefits
accumulate steadily. “That’s OK,” he says. “This isn’t a sprint,
it’s a marathon.”
Profile
02/05
Amir Allahverdi
Louis Chavez
Ian McMurray
Bernie Stevens
Martin Calland
Louis Chavez with a
ballistically-resistant,
crashworthy fuel tank
at Meggitt’s Rockmart
plant, Georgia, USA
whisper it: louis chavez is a revolutionary.
The man leading the design and
introduction of the new Meggitt Production
System (MPS) plans to turn Meggitt upside
down and he doesn’t care who knows it.
“Everyone understands what the old
organisational pyramid is saying,” says
the new Director of Meggitt Production
Systems. “Directors at the apex and shop
floor at the base, as if everything exists
to support the work of the boardroom.
But it’s really up the wrong way.” Explain?
“Gemba”. In the parlance of continuous
improvement, this Japanese word means
‘the place where the work is done’ or
‘where the value is created’. Turn the
pyramid upside down and you re-locate the
centre of Meggitt’s universe to the point
where things are actually being made—
the shop floor.
“That’s why we’ve been travelling
to production sites all over Meggitt on
C
havez is one of nature’s systems
thinkers. Even as a kid in
Albuquerque he was pulling stuff
apart just to see how it worked. Today, he’s
not much changed, as anyone will know
who’s seen him at work on the factory
floor—questioning, probing, hoovering up
information and insights. Over a 35-year
career, his expert knowledge of what
it takes to build a business operating
system, and then to make it work, has
been hard-won and hands-on. It has been
developed in numerous operational roles,
from engineer to site general manager, via
product management, engineering design
and development, operations leadership,
and sales and marketing. But he’s still that
same enquiring enthusiast who, way back in
the late 1990s, first grasped the enormous
operational significance of the relationship
between engineering and production as
general manager (GM) of Honeywell’s
military avionics division.
“As an engineer I had no awareness
of how the things I was doing, or not doing,
had an impact on the factory. We’d design
something for a Boeing or a Lockheed, help
get it operational in the engineering lab and
on a few test planes, then move straight
on to the next thing.” As a project manager
he began to see the bigger picture, but it
was later, as a newly-promoted GM, that
it really clicked: “Being able to produce
the best technology in the world doesn’t
much matter if you can’t manufacture it to
the required quality, get it to the customer
on time, and then do that day after day.” In
other words, islands of excellence are not
I’m a ‘small government’ kinda guy. I’m here
to work in partnership with the divisions and
their production sites—to build their capacity
and capability, not mine. My office is their
shop floor and that’s the way I like it
our ‘deep dive’ visits (see box: Diving
Deep, page 14). It’s why we don’t sit in a
conference room when we get there, but
get out on the factory floor to listen, learn
and understand. That’s our revolution.
Business operating systems like the
Meggitt Production System are the best
way we know to refocus a whole company
onto what it takes to make great products
exceptionally well; getting them 100%
correct and delivered on time, day in,
day out.”
the answer to continuous improvement.
It’s about treating the business as a single
system, because it’s systemic excellence
that wins the big prizes.
Picture a single creature, hungry
and looking for food, but doing so with 47
separate nervous systems each controlling
a different organ or limb. It’s hard to
imagine the evolutionary question to which
such an ill-designed creature could ever
be the answer. Not so hard to imagine it’s
long-term survival prospects though. In >
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What’s in a name?
Louis Chavez and his colleagues are keen to defuse any
misunderstandings about what the term Meggitt Production
System means.
it seems some folks think the term ‘production’ is a synonym for ‘factory floor’. But it
really means pretty much everything that happens on a production site. In other words,
everybody working on a production site is working in ‘production’, from sales to shipping,”
says Chavez. “So, how does order entry, or finance, or compliance affect production?
Half of all production issues are not found amongst the machines and materials. Bad or
confused sales and order entry flows can cause chaos. If the shopfloor doesn’t know what’s
being promised to the customer or can’t rely on what they are told about it, how can they
plan and organise? As for functions like finance and compliance, what good is it for the
shopfloor to run sweetly only for output to pile up at the factory gate because a credit stop
has been placed on the customer or the export licences aren’t in place?”
This is what you might call ‘joined up manufacture’ and it’s why one of the most
important innovations introduced by the Meggitt Production System will be the site
leadership councils. Chavez: “These are the bedrock of this new culture of functional
collaboration. They bring together representatives of all site functions so that operations
are led in a properly integrated, joined-up and collaborative way—and always with the
experience of the customer in mind.”
Lean as in evolution, anything which doesn’t
‘add value’ is targeted for eradication. Start
to think of Meggitt as a single organism
and all its duplication soon looks like
simple wastefulness too; an evolutionary
hangover crying out for something to
reorganise it and recycle it into competitive
advantage. That ‘something’ is the Meggitt
Production System. Which is why, despite
it’s name, it is so much more than a way
B
etween 2007 and 2011 Chavez
led the development and global
implementation of the Honeywell
Operating System for its $12 billion
aerospace business, having first helped
transform the company’s deep affinity for
6Sigma (see box opposite: Unintended
consequences). So how different will life
be in the lean new world of the Meggitt
Production System? “Someone working on
Someone working on the shop floor will feel a
lot more control over what they do. They will
see a lot more transparency in the way the
plant is run
to refocus and energise the Meggitt
shopfloor. It is a single, efficient, coherent
system for running every aspect of Meggitt
‘production’; and that means not just
the machinery, materials and making,
but everything a site does—from sales
and marketing to delivery of the finished
goods—wherever it is located. (See above:
What’s in a name?—the meaning of MPS.)
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the shop floor will feel a lot more control
over what they do. They will see a lot more
transparency in the way the plant is run.
And they’ll have a much stronger sense
that they are adding value and making a
difference, celebrating wins along the way.
We are doing everything we can to create
an environment which is the kind of place
where every person involved in that long
chain of creating customer satisfaction, not
just the factory floor, can be at their very
best. If we don’t achieve that, then we are
not going to get the best out of the system.”
Lean environments require a different
kind of leadership too. “When I ask site
leaders how much time they spend on the
shop floor, they very often say ‘five per
cent, maybe ten’. And when I say ‘tomorrow
it will be 50’ they think I’m crazy. Here’s
the thing about Lean: everyone, at every
level, is expected to take ownership and
accountability for their roles. So you don’t
‘manage’ people so much as help them
get the best from themselves. You lead
by example and by actively engaging with
them—questioning, probing, prompting,
exploring—to help them find their own
way with things. The best answers are
often tucked away inside the head of the
person who lives the problem every day,
but frequently they either don’t know it or
someone is not listening to them. So it’s a
Lean leader’s job to help them release the
power of what they’ve really got up there.”
t this point, Chavez typically finds his
audience wanting to ask the same
question: ‘how will I find the time to
do my real work?’ “I flip that and say ‘this is
your real work now, and doing it will free up
the time you need by eliminating hundreds
of hours of ad hoc meetings and waste.”
Within an operating system leaders get a
tremendous amount of their information
on the shop floor by working through a
structure of ‘daily layered accountability’.
“It’s these new structured accountabilities
which really up-end the old pyramid,” says
Chavez with a certain glee. The details vary
from plant to plant but, broadly speaking,
daily layered accountability means
organising work—and the visualisation and
communication of aspects, into a structure
of ‘nested’ production ‘cells’. Day-to-day
power and responsibility is devolved but
importantly the exercise of that power
and responsibility is also made more
transparent and inclusive. Each cell (five or
so people) meets first thing every morning
for 10 minutes. They go over what happened
yesterday—did we do the plan, where there
gaps, what’s being done about them, who
owns the actions, what help do we need, if
any—what’s expected today and what’s due
tomorrow? Cell leaders then report to their
module leader (escalating anything the cell
can’t solve for itself). Module leaders go on
to meet value stream leader, before they,
in turn, meet the site leaders. All along
the way, leaders visibly document ‘out of
standard’ conditions. By 9.30 a.m., the plant
A
leadership knows exactly what happened
yesterday right across the operation, who
is working to close the performance gap,
when it will be done and what help might
they need. They can start prioritising
straight away. “Which is what I mean when
I say Lean production leadership is done on
the shop floor, not in the conference room,”
adds Chavez. “As organisational capability
matures, 90 per cent of challenges will be
resolved at that layer one level.”
O
f course some of this will be
unfamiliar at first, but none of it is
alien knowledge. There are already
many examples of it working at some level
almost everywhere in Meggitt. “Look at
Meggitt Polymers & Composites, Oregon.
Their daily cell leadership meetings are
sharp and focused.” Chavez snaps his
fingers for emphasis. “And they’ve done a
great job with talent too, developing what
they call an ‘X-team’ of junior leaders—the
next generation—who run the site ‘day by
the hour’.”
It’s a common criticism of
management ‘systems’ that they are
rigid, bureaucratic and disempowering.
Doesn’t the emphasis on daily layered
accountability and standard work carry
similar risks? “No. Firstly, at the very heart
of the lean philosophy and the operation
of the Meggitt Production System is the
fundamental principle that a piece of
everybody’s job each day is to improve what
they did the day before. There’s nothing
disempowering about taking responsibility
for growing yourself and your contribution.
And then, remember Pareto and
his 80/20 rule? It’s the 20 per cent of key
processes we are standardising and which
will produce 80 per cent of the impact we
need. That leaves everything else flexible
to accommodate differences in businesses,
markets, people, processes. Building
composites, say, will never be the same
thing as building electronics, so you must
have that flexibility.”
s for concerns about the dangers of
a bureaucratic tendency, they make
Chavez chuckle. “You are talking to
the guy who is responsible for something
called a ‘project management office’ but
who doesn’t even have a desk, never mind
an office to put it in. That’s OK though. I’m
a ‘small government’ kinda guy. I’m here
to work in partnership with the divisions
and their production sites—to build their
capacity and capability, not mine. My office
is their shop floor and that’s the way I
like it.”
A
•
Unintended consequences
A striking feature of the Meggitt Production System—which
may surprise some, but should please most—is that it does
not come weighed down by a complicated array of special tools
and techniques.
it’s become a common mistake to conflate continuous improvement with statistical
methods, says Meggitt Production System leader Louis Chavez. “It was probably the
runaway success of 6Sigma (6S) in the 1990s which created the misunderstanding.
6S-type approaches are notoriously tool heavy and have a great need for expert
practitioners. But that emphasis on tools almost inevitably became an overemphasis,
and soon the tail was wagging the dog.”
For nearly three years Chavez was VP of 6Sigma at Honeywell’s $3 billion
Speciality Materials business in New Jersey. However, steeped though he is in 6S, he
believes it led companies down a path not originally intended either by their business
leadership or the original inventors. The 6Sigma business management strategy was
developed by Motorola in 1986 and made famous by General Electric a decade later.
What happened next, says Chavez, was a classic story of unintended consequences.
“Spectacular early wins saw 6S teams of maybe 50 people grow quickly into many
hundreds of dedicated full-timers. The wider business came to see 6S people as the
only ones responsible for, and able to do, any continuous improvement or problem
solving activity. Now tools experts were running the show; tool-driven ’fixes‘ had
complete ascendancy over understanding the needs of the business system and
Nowadays the most capable 6S professionals
are combining their tools skills with a
commitment to co-development
building organisational capability. Any thought of tearing the whole thing down and
trying to replace it with something more rounded and people-focused was greeted as,
well, heresy.”
Chavez illustrates the problem with a nice analogy involving city architects and
carpenters: “You want to build a city, but all you’ve got is expert carpenters with 25
different kinds of hammer. You end up with all these people running around with
hammers—beautiful hammers—looking for nails to pound. What you don’t end up with
is much of a functional city. To build your city, sure you need people who are great with
various kinds of tool, but first you need a city architect to create the understanding
of how the city will work as a system and sets of standards to ensure common
understanding: how all those bits fit together; how they complement each other;
how they work together, and stay together.”
Of course, the converse is also true. If all you’ve got is architects …
that was the second unintended consequence, he explains. “We started to create our
own version of an operating system, and soon the pendulum had swung too far the
other way. Now tools were being under-used because folks were blaming 6S for the
system-level problems, rather than seeing them as just an unintended consequence of
having too much of a good thing. Getting the balance right between tools and systems,
fixes and capability building, that took some time.”
Meggitt’s own extensive in-house 6S expertise is a real blessing for the Meggitt
Production System, believes Chavez. “We are very fortunate to have so much 6S
expertise at Meggitt already. It could save as much as three to five years of Meggitt
Production System development time. Nowadays the most capable 6S professionals
are combining their tools skills with a commitment to co-development, capability
building and the empowering of others to be a part of continuous improvement.
And that’s exactly the role 6S will now play at Meggitt: as a problem solver, enabler
and capability builder.“
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Profile
03/05
Amir Allahverdi
Louis Chavez
Ian McMurray
Bernie Stevens
Martin Calland
The market is
reshaping our
business, it wants a
much higher level
of commitment to
quality, timeliness
and cost control
than much of the
aerospace industry
has been used to
i’ve seen it all—the good, the bad and
the ugly, says Ian McMurray, Meggitt’s
new Group Quality Director. He brings
a lifetime of experience in production
quality management to his new role. “I’ve
spent all my working life in an operational
environment—various levels, industries,
organisations—much of the time with formal
responsibility for quality.
McMurray’s first managerial
responsibility for quality was in 1996
at Turner, designing and executing an
improvement strategy for the assembly
and test plants. This was also the year
Caterpillar bought Turner and introduced
him to advanced quality product planning,
grounding him in quality systems,
techniques and tools which many in
aerospace still find unfamiliar. From
Caterpillar he joined Smiths Aerospace in
2001, taking responsibility for its 80-strong
assembly and test operation. Joining
Meggitt in 2006, he became the business
unit manager responsible for helicopter
ice protection composites (amongst other
things), before a stint as VP of operational
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excellence for the Meggitt Equipment
Group immersed him in the daily quality
challenges faced by divisions. Most
recently, he was group head of operations
and quality.
For McMurray the pursuit of quality in
everything Meggitt does is the beating heart
of operational excellence. “There’s only one
thing driving our quality standards these
days,” he says, “and that is our customers.
It is they who set the standards we must
meet to remain competitive.”
The so-called ‘good old days’
—programmes lavishly funded by
governments, cost-plus pricing and
enormous margins of error—are over, he
says bluntly. “The market is reshaping our
business, our organisation and our thinking
simply by being so demanding about what
it wants from us. And what it wants is a
much higher level of commitment to quality,
timeliness and cost control than much of the
aerospace industry has been used to. If this is
the modern commercial reality of aerospace,
then the right response is to have excellent
process capability right from the off, and
that means a rigorous Quality Management
System as part of a single, integrated Meggitt
Production System.”
H
e is wary of appearing a little too
prescriptive, a little too top-down, but
has been laying the foundations and
raising the superstructure of the Meggitt
QMS over the last two years working very
closely with his divisional colleagues: “We
could easily have written a manual full of
‘thou shalts’ and ‘thou shalt nots’, but we
already have one of those. In fact we have
47 of them—all different! Meggitt doesn’t
need checklists and tick-boxes. It needs a
way to create a consistent, cross-functional,
group-wide focus on improving the factors
that do most to define Meggitt’s performance
in quality.”
‘Focus’ is the operative word. “You
can’t create something like this at a
stroke. You get there by degrees: making
improvements where they are most needed
and where they’ll make the biggest impact.”
The approach he describes is based on
the celebrated 80/20 principle. In 1906,
economist and mathematician Vilfredo
Pareto noticed that 80% of outcomes
(including the peas from his vegetable
garden) often follow from just 20% of
causes (one in five pea pods). In quality
circles this gave rise to the idea of the
‘vital few’ or that small number of factors
which generate the vast majority of quality
‘escapes’ (as errors and faults are known
in the trade).
The vital few
mcmurray’s quality imperatives
•Tackle the root cause of escapes, not
the symptom. A single set of structured
codes help to label, categorise and track
every escape, symptom and ultimate
cause. Because all escapes are not of
the same importance—admin versus
airworthiness, say—they are also
monitored and sifted for probability and
likely impact. Specialist management
teams, corrective action boards (CABs),
track every escape, symptom and
ultimate cause to ensure the corrective
actions are the right ones and permanent.
• Understand the real probability and impact
of an escape and then systematically
minimise it. In quality terms, risk
management means understanding and
managing all potential adverse events,
throughout production, including design,
delivery, product and process.
• Eliminate escapes introduced by nothing
more than moving things about. It is said
that change is the biggest enemy of quality.
Move something from place to place—one
supplier to another, one Meggitt factory to
another, between machining centres—and
you always create a new escape risk which
must be managed.
• Embed and optimise formal quality
management thinking into new product
launches from the very start, sustained
throughout the life cycle, capturing all
risks and sources of variation.
• Take a closed-loop approach, weaving
quality planning, execution, monitoring,
testing and improving into the very fabric
of everything Meggitt makes and does.
O
ver the last two years McMurray has
overseen the creation of a robust
quality management organisation
strong on networking. “Sites share
challenges, solutions and leading practice
as a matter of routine now because sitelevel quality directors know each other
from attending quality conferences and
workshops when they worked together on
quality task forces. There has also been
very substantial investment in expertise,
and a lot of new faces, right across the
organisation. The appointment of divisional
quality directors replaced 40-something
contact points with five. At the group level,
we have appointed four regional quality
managers to support central governance,
applying risk assessment to each site’s
quality performance and providing
intensive support where it’s needed. Now
we are recruiting more than 120 people,
all of them new to Meggitt but with existing
quality experience. They will focus purely
on improving our quality and delivery
performance.” The QMS team also works
closely with Martin Calland’s procurement
operation (see page 17) to develop Meggitt’s
quality requirements for suppliers. “Our
customers see all of this—the effort, the
investment, the commitment—and they
really understand and appreciate what we
are doing,” he says.
McMurray has experienced first-hand
the quality management challenge
facing business units and divisions. He
understands very well that some are
squaring up to quality and delivery targets
tougher than they have ever seen before. But
it’s worth it, he reassures them. Conquering
these challenges will not only benefit
Meggitt’s business, they will transform the
Working for an
organisation respected
and admired for its
quality, timeliness,
skill and sheer
professionalism: who
wouldn’t want to be
part of all this?
daily experiences of everyone who works in
it: “Fewer apologies to customers for things
which didn’t work out; fewer arguments
with suppliers about things that didn’t turn
up; more time to feel good about the many
more things going right first time; working
for an organisation respected and admired
for its quality, timeliness, skill and sheer
professionalism. Who wouldn’t want to be
part of all this?”
In McMurray’s book we are now on the
right path to create a world-class operation
in which everyone at Meggitt can take
immense pride and which every Meggitt
customer can trust absolutely. “This is not
just a fantastic challenge,” he says, “it’s a
fantastic opportunity.”
•
Getting to the root
The Meggitt-wide quality management business system uses structured
codes to categorise and track every escape, symptom and ultimate cause.
A valve leak reported by a customer is given a symptom code.
Back at Meggitt, the pump is stripped. A hairline crack is found in the valve body and
given a cause code.
A cascade of containment actions check stock and customer deliveries for other
cracked pumps.
A systematic investigation begins, perhaps involving suppliers and sub-contractors,
to make sure the root cause—it might be poor materials, rough handling or a machining
misalignment—is tracked down and corrected permanently.
The entire process—investigation, problem solving, containment action and root cause
follow-up—is given its own corrective action code.
Specialist management teams, called corrective action boards (CABs), track every
escape, symptom and ultimate cause to ensure that the corrective action that’s been taken
has really got to the bottom of the problem, for once and for all and wherever in Meggitt
similar weaknesses might arise.
Meanwhile, escapes are monitored and sifted by probability and potential total impact
on the wider business and its reputation. A washer missing from a spares pack is not in the
same league as a misaligned component which could jeopardise airworthiness. Careful
weighting and prioritization of all escapes helps Meggitt get the balance right between
driving down DPPM (defects parts per million) and keeping a weather eye out for that one,
rare incident which could trigger something catastrophic.
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Diving deep
Ask any member of the Operational Excellence
(OpEx) team where they expect to find the
inspiration, leading practices and expertise
for the next phase of Meggitt’s competitive
transformation—the creation of the Meggitt
Production System (MPS)—and you will always
get the same answer: from Meggitt itself. To
paraphrase an American president: there is
nothing wrong with Meggitt that can’t be solved
by everything that’s right with Meggitt.
this is not complacency. A programme of eighteen ‘deep dives’—
each visiting a single production site and spending an intensive day
getting to understand from the inside what it does and how it does
it—has given Meggitt Production Systems Director Louis Chavez
the confidence to speak for the senior OpEx team when he says:
“we’ve seen enough to know that Meggitt has the core capability,
talent and skill to build a Meggitt Production System far better than
anything anyone else has. Although we don’t yet have it all in one
place, we will.”
we try to remain open, collaborative and reflective,” says Stevens.
“We leave plenty of time, not just to give feedback about what we’ve
seen and heard, but to receive it about our own performance—how
we might improve the deep dives themselves as well as other
aspects of Meggitt Production System development
and deployment.”
The first few site visits did not get off to the best of starts.
Stevens: “We made the mistake of not sharing enough information
beforehand. In particular we had no agenda for the day. We just
wanted to keep things fluid but it had the unintended consequence
of creating uncertainty. That’s been corrected now. We’ve also got
better with practice and now we are finding sites phenomenally
supportive.”
ost individual concerns have tended to come from people
who fear change imposed against their wishes and a
loss of personal responsibility for their work. “Once they
understand our approach—that we are not trying to diminish
their responsibilities in any way, that we are there to work with
them to help improve performance—we have a different type of
engagement altogether,” says Stevens. “If you want major change
like this to work, it can never be about doing things to people. It
is always about encouraging them to understand, engage and
contribute, and not just for the company’s sake but for themselves.”
The team has been making a special point of taking every
opportunity to talk with operators and other technical staff.
Chavez: “If we can do it without greatly disturbing their work, then
M
We don’t want to put people through 50 new things if they are
great at doing 30 of them already and only need to be outstanding
at ten ... we focus on getting those ten to the level we need
Each deep dive has several objectives. First, the OpEx team is
there to get to know the realities of the site as it lives and breathes
on a normal day. There are no long meetings in conference rooms
looking at specially-prepared Powerpoints. The shop floor is the
focus. Operations Intelligence and Management System Director
Bernie Stevens: “We want to see close up the challenges faced by
each site and how it tackles them. We look at the same information
used daily to run the business—not special presentations.
We debate and discuss real issues with management. Most
importantly, we spend plenty of time on the shop floor, watching
people work and, if they have the time, talking to them about what
they are doing, how they are doing it, and what issues they face
right there at the sharp end.”
The deep dives are also a chance to assess the site’s
strengths and weaknesses, not to criticise but to help the OpEx
team understand how best to implement the Meggitt Production
System, trimming and adjusting to reflect the real shop floor needs
they’ve observed. “The visits help us figure out how best to shrink
the implementation and simplify deliverables without leaving
something important undone,” explains Chavez. “We don’t want
to put people through 50 new things if they are great at doing 30 of
them already and only need to be outstanding at ten. We focus on
getting those ten to the level we need.” Along the way, great ideas
and examples of leading practice are ‘collected’ as exemplars for
the rest of the business.
Finally, each dive is an opportunity to update site and
divisional leaders on progress with the Meggitt Production System
programme as a whole, sharing insights and ideas from across
Meggitt, and doing so in a way which actively demonstrates the
spirit and practice of Lean leadership. “Throughout the deep dives,
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we engage with them to listen, learn and understand. These are
important people with critical insight—the people who actually
make the things Meggitt sells. They are ‘gemba’ personified, and
we’ve had really good feedback from them about the deep dive
process. Some have said that to have us there, engaging with the
whole operation in this way, is extremely motivating for the whole
site. It’s great to hear that.”
The first phase of Meggitt Production System development,
including the deep dives, has focused on just 18 specially-selected
sites. Why? “We are practicing what we preach,” explains Stevens.
“We can’t do everything at once, so we are focusing on the sites
where the new system can have the greatest impact and soonest.”
Does that mean the 18 are the weakest links or the strongest?
“Neither. It’s more subtle than that. They were selected according
to a range of factors for their strategic significance to the Meggitt
customer experience. This is about reaping competitive advantage,
remember. We want to make the biggest difference in the shortest
time.” Come roll-out, the 18 will be whittled down to a first wave
of eight for much the same reason; they will be the sites best able
to deploy relatively quickly and so become showcases for the full
Meggitt Production System.
At the time of writing, the OpEx team is very close to having
completed its visits to all eighteen of the target sites, but that
won’t be the end of the deep dive process, says Stevens: “It’s so
important that we continue to get around the business regularly,
seeing what’s actually happening, talking to the people at the sharp
end, gathering information and growing our understanding.” So this
wasn’t a one-off exercise then? “No. They have been so useful and
positive we will continue to use them as much as we can over the
coming year, in fact they will become part of our standard work.”
Profile
04/05
Amir Allahverdi
Louis Chavez
Ian McMurray
Bernie Stevens
Martin Calland
It’s not just a matter of
being good at what we
do. It’s about excelling
at it.
bernie stevens is not an easy man to
– a varied career in production
as engineer, manager and director has seen
to that.
As Meggitt’s new Operations
Strategy and Management System
Director, he is working with Louis Chavez
to develop a performance management
system defining the nature and structure
of standard work for all Meggitt’s
operational leadership teams. Quality and
timeliness have become vital competitive
differentiators in Meggitt’s markets. The
Meggitt Production System will help all 47
operating units improve their performance
in both these areas but only if it is applied
consistently and systematically. “I will
be helping to establish the rhythm of
our operations right across the business
systems,” explains Stevens, “giving
production leaders the information,
support, structured expectations and
accountabilities they need to get the best
out of the Meggitt Production System, and
to improve their operational performance
systematically.”
Stevens will also be collaborating
cross-functionally, focusing on ways in
which the divisions can be helped to get
early benefits from many of the changes
the Meggitt Production System will
introduce. “In these projects we will be
focusing on creating tangible value for the
business at large, helping divisions in ways
which generate real financial benefits,
in profit and working capital terms,
whilst simultaneously helping them to
prepare for theMeggitt Production System
implementation.” With a vast and varied
experience base—embracing production,
quality, procurement, continuous
improvement, and more—and a highly
collaborative management style developed
in many senior positions, this is a role to
which he is ideally suited.
pigeonhole
D
uring 25 years at Marconi Avionics/
BAE Systems, Stevens rose through
the ranks from apprentice engineer
to production director; using Lean, 6Sigma
and continuous improvement techniques
to help lead an £200 million, 600-strong
business to world-class performance
levels. Stevens joined Meggitt in 2000
as general manager of Meggitt Avionics.
There he built a Lean, process-focused,
continuous improvement programme that
trebled turnover and returned the business
to healthy year-on-year profits growth. In
March 2009, he was asked to lead Meggitt’s
engineering transformation; an experience
that was transformative for him too. “We
transformed Meggitt engineering in a
very collaborative way. We engaged with
people, amalgamated the best approaches
and devised a set of common engineering
practices to be adopted right across the
board. It taught me afresh exactly how
powerful the collaborative approach can be,
and showed me what tremendously good
practices and excellent people we already
have throughout the business.”
W
hen Stevens was subsequently
given responsibility for the
integration of Pacific Scientific
(PacSci) at the beginning of 2011, he knew
exactly where to start: “Within a fortnight I
had all the leaders of the PacSci businesses
in a two-day workshop, looking at how we
were going to do this thing in a collaborative
way. I understood the key milestones and
the synergies we were expecting. But it was
for them, the people who would actually
make it happen, to tell me how we were
going to get there. From then on my job >
15
00
was mostly making sure we had robust and
rigorous ways to oversee, measure and
hold people accountable.”
Stevens will be drawing on this
considerable experience to contribute to a
roster of projects in 2013 designed to create
real and immediate value for the divisions
through improvements in delivery, quality,
cost control and working capital.
Quality delivered to customers
improved dramatically in 2012. “These are
sustainable benefits from real changes
in the way Meggitt works,” says Stevens.
“Now we need to systematically improve
the cost of poor quality by focusing on
the things that generate most of the
opportunity: scrap, rework and warranty.
In 2013, we will be working closely with the
divisions to ensure we have the processes
and data to identify and eliminate shortfalls
and provide training for both.
T
he new year will also see a continuing
focus on cost reduction and how
operations can better support
divisional business objectives.”
A series of workshops will be designed
to provide the detailed breakdowns and
action plans individual facilities need to
reduce inventory further.
Procurement-based initiatives in
2013 will include two Meggitt supplier
conferences. Meggitt Control Systems held
just such an event last year in Los Angeles.
It was a great success. Group procurement
Almost all of this work, although
targeted on delivering immediate
business benefits, will include foundation
elements of Meggitt Production System.
New processes will always be Meggitt
We’ve seen great progress already in 2012—
look at what’s been achieved in delivered
quality—and there’ll be more dramatic
performance improvements during 2013
now plans to run two similar events in
2013, talking about business challenges
and future direction, and how the supply
base can better help Meggitt achieve its
objectives in quality, delivery and cost—for
all of Meggitt’s main suppliers. (see profile:
Martin Calland, opposite).
How Meggitt optimises its global
resources—both in terms of getting the
best out of its low-cost capabilities in
Mexico and China, as well as optimising the
shape and size of its extensive worldwide
manufacturing footprint— will be another
key priority for Stevens in 2013.
Production System processes to support
a natural, more fluid progression to
full-scale implementation in due course.
Indeed, an important overarching objective
for Stevens and his colleagues in 2013
will be to get Meggitt Production System
deliverables out early into the divisions,
producing business benefits ahead of fullblown implementation. “Where we can see
the benefits of sharing foundation work
with the divisions, where there’s a benefit to
them in putting things into practice sooner
rather than later, then we will be looking for
opportunities to do that.”
we’ve seen great progress already in
The meaning of standard work
On the shop floor it is common practice to consult work
instructions—standardised, written down, and supported by
pictorial standards to clarify what needs to be done. Now the
Meggitt Production System will apply similar principle of
‘standard work’ to managerial roles.
during the course of a working day, week, month there needs to be rhythm and
discipline to what we do as managers, says Bernie Stevens.
“In leadership terms, ‘standard work’ means standardising the nuts and bolts of how
we manage and oversee the operation flow, how we solve problems and the tools we use to
do it, how we control what’s being done, and how we monitor and report.”
A key business benefit from applying standard work principles is that it separates the
role from the person, making the organisation itself more robust: “Standard work is always
well-documented so that if someone else needs to come in and perform that same role
then they don’t have to reinvent the wheel.”
But big benefits are also felt by individual managers, says Stevens. “Standard work
is a structure within which flair and creativity can be practiced in a disciplined way—
rather like a script to an actor or sheet music to a musician. Having the basic disciplines
of management and leadership decided right across Meggitt—standardising the nuts and
bolts—can reduce decision fatigue and free managers’ energies to tackle the
big stuff more effectively.”
2012. Look at what’s been achieved in
delivered quality—and there’ll be further
performance improvements during 2013
and beyond,” says Stevens. “The Meggitt
Production System as a whole is all about
building sustainable, long-term competitive
advantage. So it’s not just a matter of being
good at what we do, it’s about excelling at
it.” In line with the approach adopted by a
number of Meggitt’s strategic customers,
the Meggitt Production System will award
Gold, Silver and Bronze performance
certifications. Roll-out will begin by the end
of the first quarter of 2013, with the aim of
having the first sites entering the Bronze
stage in the last quarter. The rest will
follow progressively over the next months,
maturing eventually towards Silver
and Gold.
The Meggitt Production System is no
quick fix. It is more like a journey. “Finding
those last few per cent which is the
differentiator at the very top of our markets
—the things that make customers want to
come back because they can see we really
are the best—is our ultimate objective.
“Ask any Olympian: those last few
percentage points—getting from Silver to
Gold—that’s the really tough part.”
•
16
00
Profile
05/05
Amir Allahverdi
Louis Chavez
Ian McMurray
Bernie Stevens
Martin Calland
We talk about supply
‘chains’. But when
you see how many
Meggitt customers
are also suppliers,
these are no longer
chains but complex
networks of mutual
interdependence.
complex and multi-faceted though
meggitt is, Martin Calland, group head
of procurement, has a striking vision that
makes the group sound more organism
than organisation: “We talk about supply
‘chains’, as if the relationships are still neat
and linear. But when you see how many
Meggitt customers are also suppliers,
you realise that these are no longer
chains but complex networks of mutual
interdependence.”
Meggitt is an extended organisation
with interests and influences reaching
inward and outward in all directions.
Boundaries with customers and suppliers
are sometimes blurred or elided. “Viewed in
this way,” says Calland, “we really are all in
this together. So what can we do to help our
suppliers work more effectively? How can
we help them to help us by finding ways to
help them raise their game? These are now
vital questions when it comes to improving
our own operational effectiveness.”
Calland’s interest in the “essentially
collaborative” core of the very best supply
interactions was first pricked during his
career at Rolls-Royce where he studied
strategic supplier relationships, focusing
on the ‘interfaces’ between organisations.
What he learned is playing an important
part in reshaping Meggitt’s approach to
its own supplier relationships: “There
can be huge inefficiencies at the points
where organisations touch,” he says.
“Every time we looked at these interfaces,
even in partnership-type relationships,
we’d find opportunities to create faster,
more accurate and lower-cost systems by
breaking down organisational barriers,
building trust and reducing waste.” Sometimes the inefficiencies could
even look like good practice: “Think of an
engineering process in which a customer
provides a specification but the supplier
routinely recalculates everything. Or a
supplier holding a certain inventory while
the customer keeps its own matching stock.
That’s two of everything to achieve a single
outcome.”
alland has spent his career in
aerospace procurement. He started
at Rolls-Royce as a graduate
management trainee and stayed 21
years. “Management trainees try lots of
different functions but from my first day in
procurement I liked the breadth of business
exposure and the challenge of working and
negotiating with external organisations. I
still do.” >
C
17
00
Joining Meggitt in 2007 as head of
European strategic sourcing, he was
looking forward to fresh challenges in a
smaller, fast-growing, change-oriented
organisation. In due course, the US and
Singapore-based international purchasing
offices were added to his portfolio. “The
real power of Meggitt procurement isn’t in
my team, it’s out there in the 47 factories—
A
t six years old, procurement is one
of Meggitt’s most mature group
functions, ensuring that there’s
been no shortage of fresh challenges
during Calland’s five-year tenure. Almost
continuous change, renewal and growth
has required the procurement function
to shift its focus constantly in support of
the priorities of the business at large. “In
There can be huge inefficiencies at the
points where organisations touch. Even in
partnership-type relationships, we’d find
opportunities to create faster, more accurate
and lower-cost systems by breaking down
organisational barriers, building trust and
reducing waste
exactly where it should be. But sometimes
Meggitt as a whole can only reap a full
business benefit by adopting a group
perspective and aggregating the market
power of all its factories. That’s where we
come in.” The ongoing right-sizing and
restructuring of the global supplier base is
a good example. “Some Meggitt businesses
still have relatively local supply pools.
Throw a 100-mile cordon around them and
you’d capture 80% of their suppliers. That’s
not right for Meggitt’s future supply chain.
We need a better blend of global and local
capabilities; fewer, bigger, better suppliers
who can support the wider group.”
Calland’s team of category specialists
manage Meggitt’s common requirements
for global services and materials:
machining, casting, metals, electronics.
“We expand the company’s knowledge
of suitable suppliers—their capabilities,
locations, quality standards, OTD records,
growth potential—and then work closely
with the divisions to agree the final list of
suitable candidates.
“For example, Meggitt spends over
$100 million each year on machining. The
development of a network of machining
partners across Asia, Europe and the US
has played an important part in lowering
costs and raising quality. Like all new
Meggitt suppliers, they meet all the latest
AS9100 quality accreditation and NADCAP
process approvals, and are able to support
Meggitt’s future growth plans.”
18
00
one sense our core mission is the same.
Operations still want the same three things
they have always wanted from us: good
quality supplies, delivery on-time and at
reasonable cost. But while cost reduction
remains as important as ever to Meggitt,
there is now a much greater emphasis on
the levels of quality and on-time delivery
we demand of our suppliers.” He runs
through the wide range of factors Meggitt
now considers vanguard procurement
issues: “What’s our relationship like with
our suppliers? How do we manage them?
What signals do we send them about our
needs, intentions and requirements—and
how accurate are those signals? Do we
change our minds a lot? Do we know how
to work with suppliers so that we can give
them what they need? Do we have the
systems in place to do things efficiently
and quickly? Can we manage change?
These things lie beyond that traditional
cost equation and we are now paying much
more attention to them.”
S
uch questions anticipate significant
change in the way divisions and
production sites manage their
own supplier relationships. “Here, our
job is to bring staff from different sites
together to transfer best practice. At
the same time, we are identifying what
the ideal procurement function should
look in divisions and business units,
understanding where the gaps in capability
are and helping them to tackle any
improvements.”
T
here will be ramifications for some
suppliers too. “We’ve got many, many
superb suppliers. Others are not
in this league and are having a negative
impact on the quality of Meggitt’s own
operations.” What happens next mirrors
the ‘deep dive’ work being done at Meggitt’s
own production sites (see page 14, ‘Diving
Deep’).
“Our own deep dive-style meetings are
providing us with first-hand opportunities
to sharpen our understanding of what
suppliers need to do and how we can
help them,” says Calland who is
encouraging Meggitt sites to share their
knowledge and good practices with
suppliers. He knows the benefits will feed
into Meggitt’s own performance. “I have
just come back from France, visiting a
Meggitt Equipment Group site and one of its
suppliers. The supplier was grappling with
problems that MEG had already solved. I
said: “Let’s invite them in and show them
how you do it. A lot of what we are doing
with suppliers now is this kind of sharing,
coaching, encouraging.”
The deep dive visits, along with
everything that flows from them,
have proved so fruitful that Calland
is determined to see them formally
embedded in the early ‘discovery’
stage of Meggitt Production System
implementation. “The changes we are
making to our own business and operations
are exactly the kind of things our suppliers
need to be doing to make their own
operations more successful.”
•
While cost reduction
remains important,
there is greater
emphasis on the
levels of quality and
on-time delivery we
demand of suppliers
Lookout for a our dedicated series
of quarterly Meggitt Production
System communications
throughout 2013.
STRATEGY, SALES & MARKETING
Growing group
business
Meggitt’s group strategy, sales and marketing
(SSM) function has matured significantly since
Transformation, writes Lorraine Rienecker. The
group’s Executive Vice President of Strategy, Sales
& Marketing explains her team’s multi-faceted role.
T
oday, we are equipped to execute our
mission as never before—growing
group business, working with the
divisions and business units to identify
and win new programmes and deliver them
to promise.
We start with a vision about a given
market segment, reviewing development
strategy, supporting the tactical sales plans
and proposals required to win key bids and,
ultimately, providing the governance to
deliver our programmes successfully.
We are a 19-strong team covering strategy
development and validation, market
intelligence, commercial and contracts,
programme lifecycle management,
key customer account management,
At the same time, you will find them
managing multiple layers of Meggitt
access, ensuring everyone is marching in
step: a key customer is a key customer,
irrespective of the size of its presence on
the balance sheet of an individual business.
And when we win a bid, it’s our job to
make sure it’s good business for all parties
contractually. We do not win programmes
at any cost. They must embody enduring
value for Meggitt and our customers over
the long term.
What’s more, a contract with Meggitt
no longer resides in dusty repose in a filing
cabinet. It is the framework within which
our programme lifecycle managers deliver.
When it kicks off, we make sure they have
Programmes must embody value for Meggitt
—and our customers—over the long term
government relations and branding and
marketing communications. The SSM
organisation integrates and optimises all
these functions, ensuring we have the right
information to make the best decisions
every step of the way.
With our counterparts in the divisions,
we define where we want to go and how
we will get there, lining our organisation
up behind key campaigns and improving
the way Meggitt as a whole interfaces
with customers.
ur KCADs—Meggitt’s key customer
account directors—help position
Meggitt to win critical bids. Working
closely with customers long before we
win a contract, they help deploy the
group’s specialist knowledge to shape
specifications and create relationships that
last beyond discrete transaction.
O
the tools, structure and processes to
actively manage the many complex, high
value programmes Meggitt is increasingly
winning. Throughout their lives, we
ensure the contractual requirements are
fulfilled; modifications to specifications are
documented and understood by all; and
profitability maintained.
Whether you work in design,
engineering, manufacturing, shipping or
customer service, or you are a dedicated
sales and marketer in a business unit or
division, you can be sure your efforts are
being boosted by a professional team that
knows how to grow our business by marrying
customer aspiration to group interest.
Our first Strategy, Sales & Marketing
handbook, published in January 2013,
gives you the opportunity to meet that team,
understand what they do and how to access
their services.
•
Order a copy of the 2013 Strategy, Sales & Marketing Handbook from [email protected]
or download it from Sharepoint. Go to www.mymeggittportal.com, select SSM to access the portal,
then click the button for SSM Handbook.
19
00
FACTORY
FOCUS
SURFIN’ GAS
I
t doesn’t take a sleuth to spot the evidence of rapid growth
at Heatric.
A brand new factory looms up to greet you at the gate.
Handover is just weeks away, doubling production capacity.
Inside the main plant, a glance high up into the roof trusses
reveals the joint where this building too was doubled in size
just five years ago.
Its printed circuit heat exchange (PCHE) technology
was first developed in 1980 at the University of Sydney. Heatric
was founded five years later, winning its first offshore natural
gas customer in 1989 in Australia’s Bass Strait. But while the
Australian industry was in its infancy, in Europe the ‘dash for
gas’ had begun and the North Sea was booming. In 1990 Heatric
became part of Meggitt and relocated to the UK.
Today, while Heatric is benefiting from a new ‘dash for
gas’, the fastest growing fuel source for the next 20 years and
beyond, its prospects for future growth are multi-faceted.
In the following pages, we explore its UK-based
operation in Poole, Dorset where high safety demands put
Heatric craftsmen at the same skill level as welding nuclear
submarines together.
20
00
The deep runs of perfect weld around thick, complex joints,
demand the finest hand-eye control and close attention to the
delicately shifting sensations of light, heat and sound. Even
seasoned professionals get a surprise when they see its quality.
21
00
Heatric: Unlocking the future
Heat exchangers are a core technology in the offshore production of natural gas.
For 25 years Heatric’s unique diffusion-bonded, micro-channel heat exchangers,
known as printed circuit heat exchangers (PCHEs), have lead the competition on
every significant performance point. Their lighter weight and greater efficiency
make them much more compact. Their inherent structural integrity makes them
safer and more robust, able to handle higher pressures and temperatures and to
withstand extreme operating conditions. This, then, is classic Meggitt territory:
smart technology and extreme environments. With gas use booming and exciting
new applications in other sectors starting to crowd the development ‘pipeline’,
the Heatric story is really hotting up.
it’s been ten years since i felt this good
about coming to work,” says Heatric’s
Managing Director, Adrian Tattersall. He
took up the post in 2008, via biofuels and
plant manufacturing, after a 20-year career
with ICI. Since his arrival at the start of the
credit crunch, Heatric has doubled its sales
almost every year. He is clearly enjoying
managing such a high growth business.
“When you are forced to shrink a business,
the situation is hard but the decisions are
reasonably straightforward; you have to
shed capacity to survive, so the big question
is what are you going to keep?
But in a fast-growing business like
Heatric, Tattersall observes that the
judgements and the decision points are
much less well-defined. “You have to
manage that uncertainty to succeed. We are
constantly looking for new applications and
new markets, trying to find the best people,
building our capacity and skills, investing in
new machinery and buildings. But all the time
we’re never entirely sure which people will
thrive, which applications will be winners,
which markets will fly. So there’s always an
unknown quality to leading a high growth
business, and that’s really exhilarating.”
Growing the business by
growing its people
There’s no such thing as ‘off-the-shelf’ at
Heatric. Every product is tailored to the
customer’s detailed ‘problem statement’.
This might well define not only the physics
of finely calibrated gas and liquid flows,
temperatures and pressures, but also the
hurricane wind speeds and 100-year wave
sizes that can be expected during a
25-year life, hundreds of kilometres offshore.
Bespoke production places an
especially high premium on people and
skills, says Tattersall: “Designing and
It’s ten years since I
felt this good about
coming to work
Left: Exhilarated: Adrian Tattersall,
Heatric’s Managing Director
Right: Heatric promotional graphic for
American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Turbo Expo 2012: while Heatric is wellknown in the oil and gas industry, PCHEs
are ideally suited to modern power
generation processes, especially those
using advanced working fluids such as
helium or super-critical C02. (See Renaud
Le Pierres on ‘Emerging futures’, page 27)
22
00
99%
We
tu
rn
Heatric also welcomes engineering
interns, many of whom go on to become
graduate recruits. “We have a structured
graduate training programme for them
too. They get careful mentoring, early
responsibility, lots of opportunities to grow
and travel, chances to interact with clients,
and good rewards. Some stay as pure
engineers, others move into customerfacing technical roles.”
Tattersall and his team have clearly
got their people management and
motivation right. Retention is very good
and it’s not uncommon for Heatric to go
a whole month without a staff absence.
And those aren’t the only indicators of a
contented workplace: the company has
just celebrated a whole year without a
health and safety incident that required
Getting closer to customers
Another key to Heatric’s future, believes
Tattersall, will be its success in getting
closer to its customers and delivering not
only what they want in technical terms but
doing so in ways that support their wider
commercial needs. To this end, and in
addition to its traditional sales function,
Heatric now has two more customer-facing
teams; one dedicated to working closely
with customers who are themselves using
Heatric PCHE technology to develop new
applications and technologies, the other
growing Heatric’s after-sales and
customer services.
Since 2009 Heatric has been making
significant investments in the aftermarket
and it remains a development priority: “This
area of the business contributed one-third
Even after 25 years, Heatric remains such a
young company for one reason: its answer
to the global shortage of engineers and
craftspeople has been to grow its own talent
official reporting (known as ‘Riddors’ in
the trade, after the Reporting of Injuries,
Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences
Regulations, 1995).
EFFECT
of turnover in 2010 and we are planning
further significant growth over the next
three to four years, improving our response
times and, most importantly, reducing >
IVENES
S
ow
er
building PCHEs is very demanding and you
need plenty of very skilled people. They are
the bedrock of our production capacity. We
keep a very close eye on the skills matrix
of the engineering and fabrication teams,
and it is an important part of management’s
job to make sure they realise just how
important they are to us.”
A workforce of 105 three years ago
is 250 now. More than a third of those
newer recruits are welder/fabricators;
another quarter are engineers; almost
all of them are young. Tour the shopfloor
and the average age can’t be much more
than 30. Stick your head round the door of
the canteen at lunchtime and mostly what
you’ll hear is laughter. Even after 25 years,
Heatric remains a young company for one
reason: its answer to the global shortage
of engineers and craftspeople has been to
grow its own talent.
“We do a lot of training,” says
Tattersall. “We took on six apprentices this
year—there’s 14 in total now—and there’s
always someone raising or refreshing their
skills. Even experienced welder/fabricators
never arrive with all the skills we need.
It typically takes a year to get even a very
good general welder up to speed. Tricky
materials, like heavy gauge stainless steel,
and very high safety demands put us at
the same skill level as welding together
nuclear submarines. We are subject to the
same inspection regimes as well.”
op
t
mor
n
e heat i
25 YEARS
OF HEAT
EXCHANGE
EXPERIENCE
Reliable, compact and highly efficient, our diffusion-bonded heat exchangers have led the field for 25 years.
23
00
HEATRIC: UNLOCKING THE FUTURE
customer downtime.” A department that
hardly existed five years ago can already
pride itself on putting a Heatric engineer
into a customer site anywhere in the world
within 48 hours. In 2012 that included
customers in South Korea, Vietnam,
Australia, Brazil, Norway, Qatar UAE,
Denmark, USA, Canada, Singapore
and Scotland.
Developing a symbiosis between
the urgent and unpredictable needs
of a customer in crisis and the long,
predictable timelines of original equipment
manufacture (OEM) is a particular
challenge: “For a business confident in
the quality of its OEM technology the
after-sales market can seem like a
sideshow. That is an easy but expensive
mistake to make,” says Tattersall.
“There’s now a growing company-wide
understanding that good customer care
can generate more OEM sales. It flies
the Heatric flag long after the original
installation and ensures we remain at
the heart of customers’ operations and
thinking about requirements. Putting in
place what’s needed to deliver an effective
customer support operation—flexibility,
rapid response, a louder voice for the
customer —has also helped the rest of
Heatric to improve its own customer focus.
The recent big contract wins have brought
with them some real challenges, both for
individuals and for the business as a whole.
These days our customers are bigger and
more demanding, and we’ve got to match
their high standards of professionalism,
thoroughness and rigour with our own.” •
A department that
hardly existed five
years ago can already
pride itself on putting
a Heatric engineer
into a customer site
anywhere in the world
within 48 hours
Left: Top talent: Ricky Schwarzin (18)
and Jake Bascombe (21) joined Heatric’s
first-year apprentice scheme in 2011,
completing their ASME welder qualification
codings rapidly, including the 6G weld test,
a fixed 45° position. Below: Fabrication
Technical Manager Andy Foyle says many
experienced welders do not acquire this
qualification. You can read more about
the demanding craft of PCHE welding on
page 28.
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00
The new
dash for
gas
P
CHE technology was first developed
in 1980 at the University of Sydney.
Heatric was founded five years
later, and won its first offshore natural gas
customer in 1989 in Australia’s Bass Strait.
But while the Australian industry was in
its infancy, in Europe the ‘dash for gas’ had
begun and the North Sea was booming. In
1990 Heatric became part of Meggitt and
relocated to the UK.
Today Heatric is benefiting from a new
‘dash for gas’. This time it’s global, powered
by a thoroughly modern mix of economics
and climate. Burning natural gas instead
of coal can reduce CO2 emissions by 40%.
Current gas prices are about half the coal
equivalent, having fallen by almost two
thirds since 2008. There is now a world-wide
expectation that natural gas will be the
fastest growing fuel source for the next 20
years and beyond.
In fact, the prospects for Heatric’s
future growth are much more interesting
than a simple gas boom, good business
news though that undoubtedly is. Operating
in some of the planet’s most challenging
environments, offshore energy companies
must strike a judicious balance between
innovation and safety and they tend to be
Above: Nick Johnston, Heatric’s Director of Sales
Competing with 19th
century technology
Sales Director Nick Johnston explains: “As
part of the process before it is sent ashore,
the natural gas that comes up from the
ocean floor has to be purified, compressed
and cooled. So heat exchangers are a
core technology in gas processing. ‘Shell
and tube’ (S&T) units have a long history
in this application, but next to our PCHE
units they look like what they are—an
over-bulky hangover from the steam age.
Typically one of our PCHEs will be four
separate component parts and joints which
vibration and corrosion can easily weaken.
Under pressure, even tiny leaks have a
habit of becoming catastrophic as tubes
break wide open and adjacent tubes
are damaged.
The contrast with the high integrity
of PCHEs could hardly be more stark,
as Johnston explains: “The heart of a
PCHE is a joint-less, self-supporting
matrix of micro channels, set within what
is, in effect, a block of solid metal. This
makes them much more vibration- and
The unique ability of Heatric technology to unlock wider performance,
safety and build-cost benefits was central to the decision by Petrobras,
oil giant, to make PCHEs standard on eight new LNG ships
quite technologically conservative. But
now there is a growing recognition among
gas operators, whether they are eager to
boost output through existing platforms
or to optimise their often-innovative
new-build projects, that Heatric’s PCHE
technology can provide something akin
to the Holy Grail: higher output and better
safety. For existing platforms that means
de-bottlenecking the gas production
process, using robust, compact PCHEs
that, size-for-size, boost throughput and
overall system integrity simultaneously. On
new platforms, PCHEs offer the opportunity
to design-in higher efficiency, safety and
durability from the start, using compact
technology to unlock a host of additional
financial and operational benefits.
to six times lighter and smaller than the
equivalent S&T unit, enabling much higher
throughput for a given size. PCHEs are
also better at handling high pressure, up
to 650 bar (almost 8700psi), as well as very
high pressure differentials. Comfortable
operating temperatures range from
‘cryogenic’ (i.e. below -150˚C) to 900˚C.
The multi-fluid capabilities of this
technology enable a single PCHE to
replace several conventional units in
certain applications.”
Rather at odds with its long use, S&T
technology has a failure mode ill-suited
to gas production, especially in harsh
offshore environments. The gas runs
through supported tubes inside a chamber
containing the coolant. There are many
shock-resistant than any competing heat
exchanger system, and 100 times less
likely to develop a leak. If a leak does
occur, it remains contained and easy
to control, effectively eliminating the
likelihood of a catastrophic failure. Our
sophisticated manufacturing processes
also enable us to make PCHEs from a
range of corrosion-resistant materials,
giving them lifespans of 25 years-plus,
matching those of the offshore installations
of which they are an integral part.”
Space, or rather the lack of it, is
another key constraint on an offshore
platform and here S&T technology is again
found to be at a profound disadvantage to
PCHEs: “If you want to expand production
on an existing offshore platform, you can’t
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00
just buy the plot next door and move the
fence. You have to get more out of the space
you’ve got, which means you need more
compact systems that can give the same or
better performance on a smaller footprint.
This is not something S&T heat exchangers
can ever deliver. Retro-fitting our compact,
high efficiency PCHEs removes that
bottleneck at a stroke.”
New-build
But the power of PCHEs as an unlocking
technology is most fully realised in newbuild projects. Compactness, integrity
and high efficiency together create a
multiplier effect which reduces topside
bulk, simplifies construction and can cut
total build-costs by millions of dollars in
the process. For one customer, the use
of compact PCHEs eliminated one full
deck from its gas compression module,
simplifying construction and triggering a
package of other construction savings (such
as reducing the height of the helideck)
which totalled $6m. For another, reductions
in the size and weight of each of three
decks saved money but also enabled final
assembly to be completed in a single lift
by one of the vast floating cranes that cost
thousands of dollars a day to hire. Total
construction saving: $15 million.
The 18 high pressure, high duty PCHEs
to be fitted to the Shell Prelude Floating
LNG Platform will save between 10001500 tons of topside weight on a vessel
displacing 600,000 tons, significantly
lowering its centre of gravity and improving
stability in the cyclones and 20-metre
waves it will encounter 200 miles offshore.
Heatric PCHEs will enable this vessel, the
very first floating LNG facility of its kind
and the world’s largest floating offshore
construction, to chill natural gas to -162ºC,
shrinking its volume 600 times so it can be
shipped to customers all over the world.
(See Meggitt Review, Winter 2011/12 for
more on this story.)
Global expansion
Over the last 20 years some 1700 Heatric
PCHEs have been installed all over
the world. The Shell Prelude project
is expected to be the first of many new
opportunities in a buoyant Australian
market. Energy-hungry China also shows
great promise, as you would expect. But it
is in Brasil that Heatric’s policy of keeping
close to its international customers, and
serving them from a local base staffed by
local people, has really borne fruit.
At the beginning of the year, Meggitt
Brasil was established to support this most
promising of Heatric international markets,
though Heatric has been in Brasil for more
than a decade already. An initial Heatric
staff of four has since increased to ten, and
the new company now represents several
other Meggitt businesses.
The unique ability of Heatric
technology to unlock wider performance,
safety and build-cost benefits was
central to the decision by Petrobras, the
state-owned oil giant, to make PCHEs
standard on eight new FPSOs to be built
over the next four years. In total Heatric
will supply over 200 PCHEs for floating,
production, storage and offloading (FPSO)
vessels in the Lula and Guará Pre-Salt
fields in the Santos Basin, offshore
Brasil, with the majority of them being
assembled locally by Meggitt Brasil using
local suppliers for materials sourcing,
project management, fabrication, training,
aftermarket services and field support. •
Surfing gas: 26 Heatric PCHEs will feature in gas compression, gas
injection and CO2 separation modules in each of eight Petrobras’
floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessels like this in
the Lula and Guará Pre-Salt fields in the Santos Basin, offshore Brazil.
26
00
Emerging
futures
H
eatric has set itself the target of
finding one third of its business
from ‘emerging technologies’ by
2016. Three areas in particular are the
most promising.
Waste heat recovery
Waste heat recovery (WHR) captures heat
that would otherwise be lost up a chimney,
flue or power station cooling tower, then uses
it to generate electricity. In power stations
waste heat recovery helps generators lower
their unit production costs. Elsewhere, the
business case is a simple trade-off between
capital costs and the savings from smaller
energy bills and lower carbon taxes. Heat
exchanger efficiency is, then, at the very
heart of these economic viability calculations.
The compact size and high efficiency of
PCHE-based WHR systems also make them
easy to retrofit where space is limited in
existing plants. Shell and tube units could
theoretically do the same job, but high capital
costs blow the economic case, and their bulk
makes retro-fitting almost impossible.
US firm Echogen, for example, is using
supercritical carbon dioxide as the working
fluid inside Heatric PCHEs to turn much
more of the waste heat into electricity. (CO2
becomes supercritical when it has been
heated and pressurised until it behaves like
a liquid and a gas simultaneously.) Echogen
chose Heatric PCHE not just for their
compactness, strength and high working
pressures, but also because they can deliver
the very close heat and pressure control
needed to optimise process efficiency. (See
Winter 2011/12 edition of the Meggitt Review
for more on this application.)
matrices tailored to almost any combination
of customer process requirements.
Chemical processing
Air processing is the industrial separation
of atmospheric air into its constituent
gases, mostly nitrogen, oxygen and argon.
This is traditionally achieved by cryogenic
distillation which uses very large amounts
of energy to refrigerate air to -195ºC at which
point it becomes liquid and the constituent
gases can be ‘boiled off’ progressively.
For some years Heatric has supplied
PCHE heat exchangers for air processing
applications in which safety has been a
particular problem. Now, in a similar way
to chemical processing, air processing
The compactness, integrity and efficiency of
Heatric’s PCHEs is also helping to remove
multiple technical boundaries in chemical
processing, increasing process throughput
and safety.
Higher throughput in chemical
processing usually means more risk from
higher temperatures and pressures as well
as the use of hard-to-handle process fluids.
But Heatric’s diffusion bonding produces
exceptional integrity at high temperature
and pressure, while the etched micro-
Air processing
The unique ability of Heatric technology to
unlock wider performance, safety and
build-cost benefits was central to the decision
by Petrobras, oil giant, to make PCHEs
standard on eight new LNG ships
channels (that replace S&T tube-work)
enable the use of much smaller amounts of
quite dangerous chemicals.
Chemical processing makes complex
demands on heat exchangers. Sometimes
it’s a heating process, sometimes cooling;
sometimes the cooling and heating may
come from the process itself generating
or absorbing heat; and sometimes these
processes will require two components to
be mixed inside the heat exchanger. The
flexibility of Heatric’s channel modelling
process makes it possible to design internal
customers are being helped to unlock new,
more challenging techniques, offering
better efficiency and reduced energy costs,
while safety is improved by reducing the
active inventory of difficult gases. •
Below right: Will Peat masks the exchanger
nameplate to keep it clean during the final
painting process, Will is part of the team
who put the finishing touches to the product
for release to the customer.
Below left: Renaud Le Pierres, Heatric’s
business development engineer, explores
the promise of emerging technologies.
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00
The secret
of PCHE
T
he unique power of PCHEs as an
‘unlocking’ technology flows from
two extraordinary production
techniques, both of which only Heatric can
perform at the industrial scale.
Printed circuit
Instead of the large-bore pipe-work of
a traditional shell and tube (S&T) heat
exchanger, process fluids and gases
passing through a Heatric PCHE travel
along maze-like complexes of microchannels chemically-etched into the
surface of rectangular plates. The twists
and turns of these channels are customdesigned to maximise performance for
specific applications. Adjustments to the
channel path, diameter and wall-thickness
can all be computer-modelled and
remodelled quickly and efficiently, enabling
them to be optimised for fluid types,
in-process mixing, multiple liquid and gas
combinations, extremes of temperature
and pressure and wide differentials in the
two. The direct link between software and
metal thus makes PCHE a fantastically
flexible technology. Only Heatric can do
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00
it on a commercial scale because it is so
difficult to execute at this high level of
precision and channel depth.
Diffusion-bonding
Layers of the finished, etched plates
are then diffusion-bonded into what at
first sight resembles a solid block of
the parent metal with engineered holes.
Under a microscope, the metal is granular.
Diffusion-bonding promotes grain growth
across the plate interface, joining them
together without melting or deformation.
There is no welding or brazing, no flux
or filler; the complex networks of microchannels, deep inside the block, retain
their perfect form and function. This
matrix is the functional heart of a Heatric
PCHE. Diffusion-bonding is a well-known
process but again, only Heatric can do this
on a commercial scale to the high quality
standards required by its customers.
Diffusion-bonding thus creates a
joint-less PCHE core matrix that is as
strong as a solid block of the parent metal.
Its printed circuit micro-channels allow it
to flow many times more fluid for a given
size. The combination of computerised
modelling and chemical etching make it
possible to fine-tune the matrix to the most
exacting standards and requirements. As a
result, PCHEs are inherently light, robust,
safe and highly efficient.
Channel
design
There are very few production constraints
on the complex route a channel can take
across a plate. If Heatric’s design engineers
can draw it, the chemical etching process
can render it in metal.
Each project starts with the customer’s
process data sheet. It details the fluids
involved, their key physical properties
(density, thermal conductivity, viscosity),
and critical pressures and temperatures
in and out. Many of the trickiest design
challenges stem from the inescapable
trade-off between pressure drop and heat
transfer. Fluid turbulence, which has been
deliberately introduced to increase heat
transfer, might reduce exit pressure by
too much. It’s a fine line to tread, and all
the while the system also needs to be as
compact as possible, because offshore
space constraints are absolute, and smaller
almost always means cheaper-to-make
as well.
Even the simplest PCHE must optimise
the pressure and temperature drops for two
liquids (e.g. hot gas and coolant) and some
are designed for three or more. So, the design
can be manipulated in detail to achieve the
outcome desired by the customer.
Welding
Top left: Boguslaw Puchalski attaches
the metal sheathing that protects the
stainless steel core from the wet and salty
environment the PCHE will encounter
offshore. The sheathing is more robust than
any painted coating.
Centre: Diffusion-bonded block
Top right and below: Mike Walbrin welds
diffusion-bonded blocks together
to form the core of a PCHE.
Even seasoned old pros get a surprise
when they see the quality of the welding
at Heatric.
The deep runs of perfect weld, around
thick, complex joints, demand the finest
hand-eye control and close attention to the
delicately shifting sensations of light, heat
and sound.
To make a PCHE, multiple matrices
must first be joined together, then the
manifolds attached; all by precise, highquality welding. An electric arc is struck
between a metal wire electrode and the
components being joined. The intense
heat of the arc causes the wire and the
workpiece to melt and fuse. As the joint
forms, a shielding gas protects it from
nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere,
which might otherwise make it porous
or brittle.
For a cylindrical joint (of which there can be
several on a single PCHE), the work piece
is mounted on a foot-controlled turntable,
while the other foot regulates the current
flowing to the electrode. At the business
end, the arc is a dynamic, pool of light and
molten metal guided by the welder and
continually shaped to suit the geometry of
the joint being created. Special gloves help
operators retain the light touch that is vital
in precision welding, and the welder wears
a state-of the art helmet (‘screen’), with
its own air feed and digitally-controlled
reactolite visor. Every movement of every
limb, and every sense too, is thus focused
on the point where electrode and metal
meet in an arc of blinding light.
Get it right and your reward is the
sound of gently frying bacon! The continuous
run of frozen, softly-lapping weld waves
may look delicate and beautiful, but the joint
is as strong as the parent metal.
We keep a very close eye on the skills matrix
of the engineering and fabrication teams, and
it is an important part of management’s job to
make sure they realise just how important they
are to us
29
00
How to make a PCHE
The core of a printed circuit heat exchanger consists
of a block of flat metal plates on to which fluid flow
channels have been chemically-milled. The term printed
circuit isused because the PCHE’s photochemical
etching process has much in common with techniques
used in printed circuit board manufacture.
Hot and cold fluid flow plates, which feature different
designs, are layered alternately and diffusion-bonded
into a solid block of metal with fluid flow passages
1
30
00
running through it. Multiple blocks are welded together
to form a core of the required size.
The PCHE’s relatively simple assembly using
conventional welding is largely made up of four
manifold-type “headers”—two inlets for hot fluid and
two for cold—which channel fluids in and out of the
heart of the PCHE—the block of etched plates. Nozzles
connect the headers to installation pipework.
Goods inwards: Heatric buys in everything but its proprietary diffusion-bonded blocks like these stainless
steel manifolds which, when they become ‘headers’, channel the fluids in and out of the exchanger.
Below right and left: flanges, branches (nozzles) and elbows (curved inlets) required for fluid flow and
connection to the customer’s pipework.
2
Paul Thomas cuts holes into a manifold
using Heatric’s new five-axis computercontrolled plasma cutting machine acquired
in 2012—part of a million pound investment
designed to save labour and improve working
conditions by minimising the noise and dirt
from manual header preparation processes.
3
4
Dean Hopkins welds filter housings
and T-shaped nozzles into one of
several sub-assemblies that make
up the finished PCHE.
Mike Walbrin closes the end of a
header with a welded wedge.
31
00
5
7
32
00
Boguslaw Puchalski and Adrian Tristram lower a sub-assembly consisting of a
header and flange on to a core ready for welding. The operation is taking place
in a new, purpose-built new factory, adjacent to the old. Doubling Heatric’s
capacity, it will ship around five heat exchangers per week over the next 18
months to fulfil orders for a pioneering floating liquefied natural gas ship for
Shell and floating production, storage and offloading vessels for Petrobras.
Etched plates are inspected before diffusionbonding into the blocks that form the core of
the PCHE. Below: Channel holes in blocks of
diffusion-bonded plates.
6
8
The assembled PCHE in stainless steel
is prepared for painting with highperformance coatings to resist the
testing environment of their installed
bases on oil platforms and floating gas
processing facilities.
9
Mark Dyer welds blocks of
diffusion-bonded plates together.
Goods outwards: a finished assembly,
framed for shipping. While this
equipment looks large, Heatric PCHEs
are a third of the size of conventional
heat exchangers, performing the same
duty in a smaller space.
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00
DELIVERING DIVIDENDS
FOR DECADES
In 2012, Meggitt continued to win contracts that
will yield aftermarket returns for a generation.
in March. Peter Huber, President of
Meggitt Sensing Systems commented:
“We have been an engine sensor supplier
to Snecma for more than 30 years but the
scope of this award takes that relationship
to another level.”
Another level
LEAP year as
easy as A, B and C
Improvements to Meggitt’s on-time
delivery and quality performance
look set to extend key platform
content for Meggitt Sensing
Systems
A
key package of sensor products
for the LEAP engine from Meggitt
Sensing Systems was selected
by Snecma (Safran group) in early 2012.
The LEAP is an entirely new turbofan
engine developed by CFM International to
power the next generation of single-aisle
commercial jets. The agreement covered
the LEAP-1A and LEAP-1C versions of the
engines for the Airbus A320neo and Comac
C919 respectively. Meggitt estimates that
the agreement will generate gross sales
(including original equipment, spares and
repairs) of more than $200 million over the
life of these engines.
Meggitt will supply high performance
sensors right across the engine, measuring
vibration, shaft speeds and a range of
critical temperatures and support LEAP
engine operators through its global
customer service organisation.
The LEAP sensor contracts were
signed as Snecma presented Meggitt
Sensing Systems’ Basingstoke operation
with a best supplier award for excellent
operational performance on CFM56 sensors
34
00
Towards the end of the year, Meggitt won a
contract for the LEAP1B, which will power
the popular Boeing 737 Max. Over 1000
aircraft carrying this engine have already
been ordered.
Meggitt Sensing Systems won the
deal after its Basingstoke, UK facility
maintained a 100% delivery rate in 2012,
with its Swiss facility in Fribourg reaching
this goal in Q3.
The contract is for the full package
of engine sensors with the addition of oil
level gauges which, at the time of the 1A
and 1C bid were the subject of a switch
between manufacturing sites. The product
transfer has now been completed to
Snecma’s satisfaction.
The combined value of the LEAP
programmes is $500 million.
And MPC plays its
performance trump
Meggitt Polymers & Composites’
performance record in 2011 secured a
five-year agreement in 2012 from Sikorsky
Aircraft Corporation for the manufacture
of fuel tanks, ice protection equipment,
composites and interiors. Covering all
Sikorsky’s production military rotorcraft,
including the Black Hawk helicopter,
the contract is valued at up to $129
million. John Skubina, Deputy President,
commented: “This win reflects the
Rockmart plant’s world-class delivery
and quality record, and we look forward to
maintaining this high performance for the
duration of this agreement and beyond.”
Richard Cashin, Group Investor
Relations Director commented:
“Improvements like this to Meggitt’s ontime delivery and quality performance are
key to uplifting Meggitt’s already excellent
6 to 7% organic growth rates as attractive
wins like this prove.”
All fired up
Combined capability at Meggitt
Safety Systems wins first
sole-source fire detection and
suppression deal.
F
or many years, Meggitt has designed,
developed and integrated fire
detection and control systems for
the world’s leading aircraft manufacturers.
Today, it equips over 90% of the world’s
commercial aircraft with its failsafe
overheat detectors.
Until the addition of a fire extinguishing
specialist as part of the Pacific Scientific
Aerospace acquisition in 2011, however,
there was only one company that could
offer complete aircraft fire detection and
suppression systems. Now Meggitt has this
new combined capability, there are two.
The investment is already paying off.
Amongst the range of multi-million dollar
deals closed in 2012 to date, Meggitt Safety
Systems was selected by Airbus to provide
fire detection, control and extinguishing
systems for its A320neo programme and
full fire protection systems for Embraer
Defense Systems’ KC-390 Tanker transport
programme and Bombardier’s Global 7000
and 8000 business jets.
Sole-source preference
“The ability for suppliers to offer complete
ATA Chapter 26 fire protection systems
has become increasingly important as
aircraft manufacturers continue to simplify
procurement and logistics.
“In some cases, bids will only be
accepted from suppliers who have this
complete capability under one roof,”
explains Meggitt Safety Systems’
President, Dennis Hutton.
“This enhanced technology offering
and the strong customer relationships
arising from our history of fire detection
gives us great confidence in the prospect of
continuing growth in this field.”
capabilities to better meet the needs of
customers.
“Instead of having to talk to different
people in different divisions, Hamilton
Sundstrand could talk to one management
team about all its requirements,” explains
Kevin Wright, Vice President of Strategy,
Sales & Marketing for Meggitt Control
Systems.
“The technology was largely in place
but by improving our customer interface
and streamlining the supply chain, we have
secured a new lifetime platform win.”
A cool billion
Global expansion
Single point customer contact
delivers a lifetime platform
win worth about $1 billion to
Meggitt Control Systems.
O
ne of Meggitt’s key strategies for
driving growth is to secure positions
on new platforms, preferably as a
sole-source provider. We then benefit from
decades of stable aftermarket business in
spares, maintenance, repair and overhaul.
Meggitt Control Systems’ (MCS) recent
win, providing components for thermal
management packages on Pratt & Whitney’s
new PurePower® geared turbofan engine,
is a good example of how the group puts its
growth strategy into practice.
A step-change in technology
Offering double-digit improvements in fuel
reduction, noise, environmental emissions,
and operating costs the multi awardwinning engine is the fruit of 20 years’
research and development.
These improvements have led a number
of leading airframers to sign up the new
engine for equally innovative new platforms,
including Bombardier’s new C-Series
regional jet, the Mitsubishi Regional Jet and
Airbus’s A320neo aircraft, one of the fastest
selling commercial airliners in history.
These engine and aircraft programmes
will have a lifetime of circa 40 years. MCS
will design, manufacture and service valves,
coolant pumps, oil coolers and heat
exchangers on seven different thermal
management sub-systems supplied by
Hamilton Sundstrand to Pratt & Whitney.
In total, the deal is estimated to be worth
around $1 billion.
A step-change in efficiency
In large part, the contract win was a result
of Meggitt’s Transformation programme,
a two-year internal restructuring in which
businesses were aligned more closely with
This was a critical factor in winning
the contract for the Shell Prelude, a
revolutionary new platform that allows
gas production in deeper water and more
distant offshore fields. Known as a floating
liquid natural gas (FLNG) platform, Prelude
is the largest ship ever built. The floating
facility will chill natural gas produced at the
field to -162°C, shrinking its volume by 600
times so it can be shipped to customers in
other parts of the world.
“Thanks to their compact size and
high efficiency, our PCHEs were certainly
one of the enabling factors for the new
platform,” says Heatric Managing Director,
Nick Johnston.
Platform to platform
Strength to strength
Targeted group investment has
enabled the business to capture
demand from pioneering energy
platforms around the world.
H
eatric’s printed circuit heat
exchangers (PCHEs) were designed
specifically for the high pressure,
high temperature environments required
to liquify gas and light hydrocarbons or for
gas compression cooling. Made from flat
metal plates that have fluid flow channels
chemically etched into them, their compact
size was designed for oil rigs where space
is at a premium.
Four to six times smaller than
conventional shell and tube heat
exchangers of the same capacity, Heatric
PCHEs have been installed by leaders such
as BP, ExxonMobil and Shell. On one North
Sea rig, the need for one full deck was
eliminated, saving £6 million, on another,
1000 ft2 was saved.
Throughout the 1990s and early
2000s, sales were strong but a large group
investment in 2007 doubled manufacturing
capacity in its Poole factory, enabling
Heatric to increase the size of individual
exchangers and overall production capacity.
Internal investment has also enabled
Heatric to open facilities close to rapidly
growing customers such as Petrobas in
Brazil, a key factor in a recent contract
worth over $100 million.
“We will supply over 200 PCHEs for
floating, production, storage and offloading
(FPSO) vessels in the Lula and Guará
Pre-Salt fields in the Santos Basin, offshore
Brazil,” says Johnston.
Starting in 2012 for completion in
2017, the majority of heat exchangers will
be assembled locally by a new Brazilian
company, Meggitt Do Brasil. It will
collaborate with suppliers on the ground in
materials sourcing, project management,
fabrication, training, aftermarket services
and field support.
New markets
“We will increase manufacturing capacity
by another 150% this year,” adds Johnston,
“And that helps us focus on new areas such
as the waste heat recovery market in power
generation.”
Waste heat specialists Echogen have
designed a hyper-efficient system using
supercritical CO 2. Carbon dioxide becomes
supercritical when its temperature and
pressure are raised to a point where fluids
exhibit properties similar to both liquids
and gases simultaneously, making heat
transfer more efficient.
“Our PCHEs allow greater heat
recovery and efficiency than others, thus
enabling a lower cost per unit for the
electricity,” explains Johnston.
In line with Meggitt group strategy,
carefully targeting investment has
propelled Heatric forward, increasing
production capacity and geographical reach
so the business can find new markets for
existing technology.
To read more about Meggitt’s compelling
investment proposition, go to
www.meggittinvestors.com, the group’s
new investor relations page.
35
00
MAAP ON
THE MAP
With airlines based in Asia continuing
to expand rapidly, Meggitt’s creation
of a more comprehensive aftermarket
base spanning maintenance repair and
overhaul (MRO), spares distribution
and customer support in the region
is timely.
CUSTOMER
SERVICE
MRO
NEW
ASIA-PACIFIC
HUB
SPARES
DISTRIBUTION
36
00
A
Above: Adrian Plevin, Vice President
and General Manager, Meggitt
Aerospace Asia Pacific
Below: Meggitt products are on
the Airbus A380 and, seen here,
Boeing’s 787. MAAP’s new facility
is positioned strongly to capture
the aftermarket business that will
flow from these highly successful
aircraft platforms. Their fleets
were launched in the Asia Pacific
first to meet exponential growth.
Over one third of new airline
deliveries are destined for Asia
Pacific over the next decade.
new chapter is underway at Meggitt
Aerospace Asia Pacific (MAAP) as
the team settles in to new premises
and expands its range of services for
customers.
Singapore-based MAAP may only
have moved 20 minutes’ drive from its
old location, but its new facility is a world
removed from its former site.
Not only is it around 50% larger
(22,000ft² against 15,000ft²), the new
building’s internal arrangement allows
for much better use of that space.
Little wonder that several parts of the
Meggitt constellation of companies have
now gravitated there, allowing the group
to offer a far greater range of capabilities,
something that MAAP vice-president and
general manager Adrian Plevin has been
advocating to group businesses for
several years.
The relocation resulted from the
Singaporean government’s decision to
redevelop the site of MAAP’s original
facility, explains Plevin. “It actually suited
us very well because although we had room
to grow in the old facility, this gives us the
opportunity to redesign what we’re doing
and create more space to bring the new
capabilities on-line.”
The new site—for which Meggitt
was the launch tenant—is on a dedicated
aerospace park at Seletar, a former Royal
Air Force base that now serves as a general
aviation airfield for privately-owned light
aircraft and executive jets.
“The government in Singapore is very
proactive in terms of promoting aerospace,”
says Plevin. “They see it as a strategic
industry for the country and they’re very
keen to develop it.
“The concept of what they’ve created is
a general aviation airport that will fuel the
growth in business jets—which is important
in Asia. They are also trying to promote
manufacturing and we’re next door to
Rolls-Royce, which has set up a huge
facility that will build the Trent 900 and 1000
turbofans.” Rolls-Royce is one of Meggitt’s
major customers.
O
ther major aerospace players
moving on to the site include RollsRoyce’s major US competitor Pratt
& Whitney, general aviation manufacturer
Cessna, helicopter constructor Eurocopter,
Canadian simulator house CAE, Dutch
aircraft maintainer Fokker and engine
overhaul shop Standard Aero.
All of which will help attract business
from the world’s most rapidly-expanding
air transport region. Over the next decade,
one-third of new airliner deliveries are
destined for Asia-Pacific and the region’s
airliner fleet is expected to jump from 10%
of the global total to around 25%.
Illustrating this trend is the fact that
several new airliners are making their
service debuts in the region. The Boeing
787 Dreamliner first saw service with ANA of
Japan, China’s ARJ-21 regional jet will enter
service there shortly and several of the first
customers for the Airbus A350 long-range
twinjet will be Asia-Pacific carriers—the
region has ordered more A350s than Europe
and North America combined.
MAAP’s new premises also allow it
to become more efficient. “The old factory
wasn’t very well laid out and it was shared
with other people,” says Plevin. “One of the
good things about the new place is that
Continued on page 40 >
A third of new airliner deliveries
are destined for Asia-Pacific over
the next decade
37
00
MAAP ON THE MAP
We have a central aisle and by the time you’ve walked to the
Healthy cells (above left)
Pristine trolleys dedicated to key platforms such as the
Boeing 757, ATR 72, BAE 146 and Fokker 100 aircraft carry
all the tools needed by operators to repair and overhaul a
braking system. Embedded in foam, foreign object damage
(FOD) is minimised and there’s no heavy lifting. In the
background, a ‘waterfall’ chart instantly shows the health
of the cell: on time is in green; in trouble is in red. This one
is in perfect health, as a result of General Manager, Adrian
Plevin’s ‘heck of a drive on continuous improvement and a
robust FOD prevention programme’.
38
00
Walk Meggitt’s capabilities: virtually all of them are represented in a line
from one end of the factory to another: engine heat exchangers, aircraft
and industrial valves, engine vibration monitoring systems, electronics and
sensors, crew restraints, wheels and brakes, fire extinguishers and EPAS—
emergency aircraft door openers
far end you’ve passed all Meggitt’s major competencies.
Left: Nearly done Cheng Hui
operates a flow rig—the final test
for a Meggitt heat exchanger.
Right: Making sense of engines
Meggitt’s Vibro-Meter vibration
monitoring units are key to improving
the operating performance and
maintenance economics of virtually
any aero-engine.
Far right: Good vibrations Ken Ong
operates a newly installed generic
testing system in an environmentallyand electrostatic discharge-controlled
cell for a Meggitt sensing systems
vibration monitoring unit. MAAP was
only a source of spares for this unit
before moving to Seletar Business
Park. Today, it is the exclusive provider
of OEM-backed electronics MRO for the
product in Asia.
39
00
MAAP ON THE MAP
> continued from page 37
it’s a large, open area without any columns,
allowing us to create the cells and product
flows we wanted to create. We’ve developed
it into a much slicker facility.”
t is, in fact, a great example of a ‘visual
factory’, says Plevin, a claim endorsed
by Amir Allahverdi, Meggitt’s new Group
Operations Director (see page 3). “As you
walk through it, you can actually see how
well it’s performing.” Measures such as
prominent signage, safety instructions
and waterfall charts clearly showing
performance metrics such as on-time
delivery statistics give a real visual ‘feel’
of progress on contracts.
Previously, MAAP had three cells for
repair work: wheels and brakes, valves
and heat exchangers. The new facility
accommodates nine cells, “so it’s really
a step-change.
“PacSci has set up three cells for fire
extinguishers, crew restraint systems and
high-pressure cartridges, Meggitt Control
Systems is setting up a cell for industrial
valves and Meggitt Sensing Systems will
have two cells for sensors and electronics.
“We have a central aisle and by the
time you’ve walked to the far end you’ve
passed all Meggitt’s major competencies.”
In other words, the group now has a fullscale MRO, spares distribution facility and
customer services base in a region that is
seeing huge airline growth.
MAAP’s statistics reflect that. Since
November 2011, staff numbers have risen
from 28 to 45. Turnover has risen by 90%.
MAAP’s five-year plan aims to increase that
by another 60%. Says Plevin: “We’ll double
the number of MRO shipments and spares
when our new capabilities come on line in
2013.” Capacity has more than trebled, and
additional regional support staff in fields
such as marketing, procurement, defence
systems and energy have also moved in.
“We’ve really grown up,” he comments.
“One of the key things we know our
customers want is a common Meggitt
approach. That’s a great opportunity for us
because, from an aftermarket perspective,
we can offer everything from one address,
so it should help us improve service and
relationships with them.
“It also helps us leverage our products
and capabilities. We get more critical mass
so we can offer customers a bigger basket
of services. And we’re in the same time
zone as them.
“It’s going to be very interesting to see
which cells will grow and outgrow their
space. We have a really good capability on
the engine front and all the Asian engine
overhaul shops are our customers, so I
expect to see quite a lot of growth there.
I
40
00
“We expect to win new MRO
and aftermarket business from both
competitors and third parties through
having this new capability in Asia.”
An indication of MAAP’s long-term
intent to develop comes in the fact that it
has taken an initial nine-year lease on the
new facility, a term that Plevin expects to
see extended.
He acknowledges that there is
competition and that MAAP has to
differentiate itself from them. One way
of doing this, he believes, is via its strong
links with Meggitt’s original equipment
manufacturers (OEMs), “so we are
recognised as the OEM shop in Asia.
Our fire extinguisher guys, for
example, have been to the UK and Miami to
be trained. The OEM helped us set up the
facility and then helped train our staff and
it’s the same with Meggitt Sensing Systems
cells. I’m not aware of many of the thirdparty shops setting up in conjunction with
the OEMs.”
O
ne major change Plevin hopes to
initiate is for customers to sign longterm agreements for the supply of a
“basket” of Meggitt products, potentially
linked to flight-hour agreements so both
Meggitt and its customers can predict
future volumes and costs of spares and
maintenance. “The really key thing for us
operationally is to make this a real centre of
excellence and back up the new capabilities
with outstanding levels of service,”
comments Plevin. •
Above: Putting Meggitt to the test
Eng Kai loads overheat detector
switches for the Rolls-Royce RB211
family of high-bypass turbofan engines
into brand-new high temperature (700°
degree plus) ovens, ensuring Meggitt’s
extreme environment sensing meets
the required performance standards.
Transferring your entire operation to new premises rarely ranks
among executives’ favourite projects; the risk for disruption to regular
operations is just too great for comfort. But according to Adrian Plevin:
“The move was great fun, actually.”
Much of that was probably down to the two years of planning that Plevin admits preceded
the relocation. But the event nevertheless went remarkably smoothly.
In the first phase, the three production cells, plus office and distribution facilities,
were moved from the old premises. In the second, the new capabilities were set up.
“We started the first phase on Monday 25 June and finished a week later, although the
bulk of it was moved over a long weekend. We shipped our last spares to customers from
the old premises on the Friday morning and by 10am on Monday we had shipped our first
spares out from the new building to support an AOG [‘aircraft on ground’, the most urgent
category of request].
“The second phase saw new cells for items such as fire extinguishers and valves being
set up ready for quality audits by the end of October.”
“Once the facility had been moved, phase two involved quality approvals for items
moved from the old facility and associated processes from the world’s airworthiness
authorities to allow us to start work.
Given the aerospace industry’s insistence on being able to track every component—
down to an individual screw—back to its point of origin, that meant checks from the US
Federal Aviation Administration, its European counterpart EASA, China’s CAAC and
Singapore’s CAAS.”
Everything to hand
This cell for maintaining, repairing
and overhauling heat exchangers is
a fine example of cellular design and
manufacturing, attracting plaudits and
multiple observation visits from customer
teams. In a ‘U’ shape, there is minimal
movement between processes and
minimal movement within processes.
Everything is to hand. In the foreground,
there’s a “waterfall” chart delivering
information instantly on the health of the
cell and shadow-boarded tools echoing
the system of platform tool collections
on trolleys and easily accessed when
stripping units.
Above: Wai Hong uses a water blast gun on a cleaning rig to clean a heat exchanger.
Down the line, Jimmy Ng repairs the product. In the background, heat exchanger
matrixes are dried in ovens and, continuing round the U, final assembly, testing, final
inspecting and despatch.
Below: Left to right: Steve Soh, Head of Operations; Rosalind Kew, Customer Services
Executive standing in for Ng Bee Choo, Head of Customer Services; Soon Nam Tan,
Head of Materials and Logistics; Adrian Plevin, General Manager; Trebas Kwek,
Regional Finance Controller, Asia Pacific; Jessie Gan, Head of Sales. Absent on the day:
Dominic Cheong, Head of Quality.
Mopping up
After a gemba walk where managers
tour the factory and see any issues with
their own eyes, the MAAP management
team reviews the MOP (Measure of
Performance) board. This is a continuous
improvement hub where performance
and actions are monitored and measured.
Success or shortfalls in performance are
illustrated in highly visual charts based
on easy-to-understand traffic light colour
codes. The review is part of a system
of daily stand-up meetings that start at
0800 hours on the dot, every day, without
fail, at which MRO cell and functional
personnel (operations, customer services,
materials, sales and marketing, finance),
assess the state of Lean tool “6S” (Safety,
Sort, Straighten, Shine, Standardise and
Sustain), quality and compliance.
41
00
Wanted:
Bright ideas to
boost Meggitt’s
future
The wave of technology development
is only going to get bigger. The man
charged with steering Meggitt’s product
technology for the next 20 years believes
the group can ride that wave to even
greater commercial success. But that
means talking to each other.
K
eith Jackson, Meggitt’s new Group
Technology Director, believes that
a company with a clear vision for its
long-term product technology is always
faster, leaner and can shape its market.
“Being the leader is always more fun and
controlled than playing catch-up. It’s really
the difference between doing ‘well’ and
doing ‘brilliantly well’.
That may mean going to customers
and saying not ‘What do you want from
us?’ but putting across your views. “If you
can demonstrate leadership and a strong
view of what the market needs, you don’t
get pulled in various different directions.
Rather, you can pull away from the pack.”
To be able to do that means ensuring
that everyone in the business is pulling
in the same direction: “You can’t take
leadership to your customers if your own
internal business doesn’t share the
same view.
“I’ve seen this happen so many times
in other companies; a new strategy comes
down from on high and a lot of people say
‘I don’t believe in this, I’m going to do my
own thing.’”
A group like Meggitt, however, has
one advantage when it comes to building
a consensus: “The great thing about
engineers is that they’re very logical. If
you can explain your reasoning , they’ll
say ‘Fine’ and get behind it.”
Jackson believes that building that
consensus means encouraging greater
cross-fertilisation of ideas within the
group, to allow it to raise the bar in
developing technologies and ideas.
“I strongly believe in the importance of
manufacturing industries to the economy
of the UK and all our divisions’ host nations.
I really believe in manufacturing and my
mission is to help enable Meggitt to do
brilliantly well.”
B
efore arriving at Meggitt earlier this
year, Jackson was chief technology
officer on electrical power and
control systems at Rolls-Royce PLC.
He went there without any aerospace
background [see page 45], to bring the
company wider industry experience in
controls and monitoring systems. The
cross-fertilisation of ideas he wants to
encourage at Meggitt was also part of
Rolls-Royce’s strategy.
“They wanted to employ senior people
from other sectors, such as the software
and automotive industries, to get fresh ideas
and views, and I wanted to do something very
different in my career, so it was a good match.
“Rolls-Royce was really fascinating,
a great company. They’re the UK’s
manufacturing and industrial powerhouse,
bar none and I learned an awful lot about
42
00
UNKNOWN
how a big company works, but I was also
able to take them lots of ideas, coming
from a background of control systems for
cars and trucks. I found them open to new
thinking from an outside industry.”
With that background, he believes he
can help show Meggitt how a company with
global functions and capabilities works.
J
ackson came into contact with Meggitt
while at Rolls-Royce, as the group
supplied engine monitoring units on
the Trent turbofans that power airliners
such as the Boeing 787 and Airbus A330.
So, what exactly is his role here?
“In a nutshell, the job is to try and
create even more value for the business,
by working across Meggitt and identifying
where we can share, learn and develop joint
technologies and innovative products.”
But although bringing ideas together
is part of his role, it’s more than simply a
case of bolting things together. “I don’t want
divisions that don’t spread good practice
between them, but Jackson feels this
description is too negative. “Very often,
people have a job to do and they just keep
their heads down and do their jobs. People
often don’t have any time to get their heads
up and look out of the window to see what’s
going on. My job is to help them capture
and evaluate their ideas, create a business
case to develop them and give them the
space to progress.”
Jackson plans to use the internet to
remedy this, by creating a secure, internal
electronic forum where people can discuss
ideas. “When I want to find out how to fix my
track car”—he drives a Lotus Exige off-duty
—“I make a post on www.exiges.com and I
normally get a solution within a few hours.
Sharing ideas in a way where we can dip in
and out of the discussions, capture ideas
and work across time zones is powerful.
“The people who know most about the
businesses’ needs are the people who are
I had 10 to 15 Cambridge University people with science
and engineering degrees designing these controllers
and 60,000 truck drivers trying to beat them
people to think that we take, say, the wheels
and brakes business on the one hand and
sensing products on the other and crash
them together and you get a better product.
“The word synergy is often used—
but you must find real synergy. You have
to have a really clear focus as to how it
creates additional value. Maybe in many
areas we need a common capability like
high temperature electronics or additive
layer manufacture, to name just two hobby
horses of mine”.
The phrase ‘silo mentality’ is often
used to describe companies with multiple
in the businesses. I hope to be a catalyst,
getting people thinking.
“It’s very much about developing
an environment where people see the
advantages of working together and sharing
knowledge and views, as well as finding
product ideas and identifying which are
the most valuable.”
J
ackson is seeking to make the
intranet site a long-term fixture in
the group: “For me it will be a great
success when it has a life of its own , with
only a small team needed to process the
discussions and formalise the output into
approved technology positions.”
The site, which at the time of writing
was at the beta test stage, is designed to
allow people from Meggitt’s widely-spread
companies to get together at any time. Good
ideas, says Jackson, don’t appear by locking
a large number of engineers or scientists in
a large hotel room for three days, they can
materialise at any moment: “I get some of
my best ideas while cycling up some of the
highest hills in the Peak District because I
try to think of something different in order
not to think about the pain! We are all
different; others may get their best ideas in
the shower, not the best place for
a meeting.”
Jackson wants to move quickly
in populating the site with ideas from
around the businesses so the next stage
is to create greater formal involvement of
critical contributors. Advanced Research
& Technology teams from across the
strategic business units are likely to be the
groups most heavily involved. Sponsorship
from engineering directors across the
group is critical.
He is a strong believer in engaging
the greatest possible number of people
to maximise the chances of finding The
Next Big Thing. He knows from previous
experience that ideas can come from the
most unlikely sources.
Earlier in his career, he designed
engine controllers for trucks, which limit
the top speed at which the vehicles can
travel. “I had 10 to 15 Cambridge University
people with science and engineering
degrees designing these controllers and
60,000 truck drivers trying to beat them.
“Truck drivers want to drive faster;
it’s more fun and they can go home more
quickly. And while driving, they have lots of
time to think.” >
43
00
WANTED: BRIGHT IDEAS TO BOOST MEGGITT’S FUTURE
Some ideas come preformed.
In a flash.
Others need a thorough
workout to get in shape.
Either way, sketch yours
out whenever they arrive,
scan them in and then take
them along to the Meggitt 20
intranet.
You might think you haven’t
got enough. But an inspired
colleague could show you that
actually, you’ve got too much.
Visit www.Meggitt20.com
now and change your future.
Members of the trucking community
came up with fascinating ways of defeating
the software, some of them quite complex,
including slightly damaging the component
that sent pulses denoting wheel speeds to
the engine controller.
“We struggled to make the software
robust against that type of attack but I took
the lesson away: maybe we should have
asked some of the drivers at the design
stage how they trick systems …”.
Jackson’s point is that if you pull
together a large community of people, they
can come up with ideas that experts in the
field haven’t thought of: “I don’t believe
anyone has a monopoly on good ideas.”
The intranet site should become
fully live in early 2013: “I want to have
controls and system engineering at
Sheffield University, where he spends one
day a week. “Engineering has looked after
me pretty well through my career and I
really enjoy giving something back.
“I really enjoy people with liveliness
and, generally, students have that. And I
rate Sheffield University highly because
it likes to work closely with industry and
wants to understand and solve industry’s
problems.”
Jackson’s aim is looking at how to
develop the company over the long term. Not
five or 10 years ahead but up to 20 years out.
“Looking 20 years’ ahead and working
out the capabilities that will be required
then is one thing. You then need a road map
and plan to get there. Investors will (rightly)
I nvestors will (rightly) not tolerate a plan that makes no
return for 20 years. You have to invest, make a step, get
a return and invest in the next step. That’s why it’s so
important to have the long-term vision
somewhere where you can capture ideas
and where the people suggesting them can
see their ideas are being taken seriously.
“If someone comes along and says
‘I want to do x, y and z,’ and you analyse it
then decide not to take it further, explain
that analysis to the person. Or explain
that it didn’t make the cut in this round of
funding but that it will be looked at again.
Or tell them ‘If this or that change, we’ll
look at it again.’ People are much happier if
they can share their ideas, have them fairly
considered and understand the rationale.
If ideas aren’t taken up I’ll give a personal
commitment to explain why.”
Another activity that makes Jackson
happy is his visiting professorship in
44
00
not tolerate a plan that makes no return for
20 years. You have to invest, make a step,
get a return and invest in the next step.
That’s why it’s so important to have the
long-term vision.
M
ore immediately, one area of
interest is the development of
high-temperature electronics.
Currently, consumer electronics don’t
work above 60 to 70 Celsius. ‘Hardened’
electronics used in automotive or aviation
products stretch that figure to around 125
Celsius. Increase that figure to 250 or even
400 Celsius, for example, and whole new
areas open up.
“If you can get to that figure, you can
start embedding electronics in wheels and
brakes of aircraft, or put them closer to
where you need them to be on an aircraft,
such as hotter parts of a battery or closer
to the core of an engine. You can improve
their function.”
Another field in which he feels
Meggitt should be involved is additive
layer manufacturing, where components
are made by a machine laying down very
thin, precisely-shaped layers of metal
to build up the component into highlycomplex shapes that would be impossible
to machine. This is in low-volume use
today but is likely to become increasingly
mainstream, and will include embedded
electronics components.
The three aspects of Meggitt 20, the
intranet site that Jackson plans to develop
are Products, Capabilities and General
Industry Awareness—the last of these
to take advantage of other industries’
technologies and bring them into Meggitt.
Bringing these to fruition will need a plan;
this will resemble a product roadmap,
with decisions on what the capability
footprint will look like across the Meggitt
businesses—for example, where within
the group the capability resides. Jackson
is working on this plan with engineering
directors and developing road maps for
both products and capabilities.
Going back to his task of looking to the
future, Jackson comments: “People ask me
‘Is Meggitt 20 critical for Meggitt?’ The answer
is no, Meggitt has done brilliantly and will
continue to do so. However, with a plan, we
can do even more for the same investment
and I always like having competitors playing
catch up. The real question is, ‘Are we doing
enough to allow Meggitt to achieve its real
potential?’” Jackson hopes to ensure the
answer to that question, some years down
the road, is ‘Yes’. •
Jackson’s path to Meggitt
Keith Jackson was brought up in Lowestoft – and admits that his
major motivation to get into university was the prospect of leaving
the fishing port. “I could see it wasn’t the place to be. As soon as I
could, I went to London.”
G
raduating from University College London in 1981 at 20 with
what was then the relatively novel degree of computing and
statistics, he became a research assistant there for a couple
of years before going to Cambridge—but not to the university.
“In the early 80s the Cambridge computing scene was really
boiling, with hundreds of small technology companies that you
moved around and built up skills. I’ve always seen electronics and
software as enablers for other things and I got very heavily involved
with people who could understand customers’ needs and wants.
“I got involved in the print industry, medical computing, even
banking, but then got into a little start-up that was designing datalogging systems for race cars and wind tunnels, for example, putting
lots of sensors on a car and then looking at what they’re telling you
on a computer screen. You can still see the legacy of these systems
on the pit wall of some F1 race teams and Indy car teams.”
The company was doing some work for an American
entrepreneur, Roger Penske, who owned a racing team in the
US and had bought an engine company, Detroit Diesel, from
General Motors.
“He said ‘I really like that these guys in Cambridge have done in my
race cars; I want them to do the electronics for my truck engine
company.’
“It was a bit of a shock, bearing in mind we were 15 people in
a shed in Cambridge and he had taken the contract away from a
major US company, Delco, and given it to us.
“We had never developed an engine controller in our lives. We
weren’t even sure what one was. We developed one from scratch in
We developed an engine controller from scratch in three years. It was one of these cases where we nobody told us it was hard
three years. It was one of these cases where we nobody told us it
was hard, but what we produced was world-class.”
Jackson, one the founders of P i Technology company, helped
build it up from zero in 1990 to a £15 million turnover company
employing 100 people just ten years later. He left after it and its
sister company were sold to Ford and began the next stage of his
career at Rolls-Royce.
“Wellness” pilot launches in the US
How can I get the most out of my life? A simple question but one
there’s not often time to ask. Fortunately, the first part of the
answer is not difficult. Pay attention to what you need physically
and mental performance will improve, enabling you to tackle the
tougher questions in life more easily. Good health helps increase
energy levels and productivity, not to mention self-esteem.
S
o says, Vitality, world-leaders in company “wellness” (health and fitness) initiatives.
Its three-step programme has been chosen to help Meggitt’s US employees assess
what they need to stay in shape physically. Effort is rewarded with generous retail
and vacation discounts and reductions in healthcare contributions. The pilot was launched
in September 2012 with the potential for a global roll-out.
Participants have been signing up online, completing assessments and earning
points, using personalised health reports to plan and set goals. They are tracking progress
through cell phones and tablets and even accessing health tools on line and receiving
coaching over the telephone. Supporting education programmes range from heart health
through nutrition and diet to maternity care, with study options for cardiopulmonary
resuscitation and First Aid.
So-called “Vitality Bucks” deliver discounts from leading brands such as Dell,
KitchenAid, Samsung and Sony with a range of high quality travel and leisure discount
options.
R
obin Young, Group Organisation Development Director said: “Sometimes easy
decisions—such as actually changing habits that you know are bad—are hard to
make, hence the incentives. Personally, I love many features of the programme but
the best thing is that it is tailored to the individual. Based on your profile, you are offered
several action choices suited to your current health goals. You decide which activities to
follow, and when you have completed any activity, you immediately get updated suggestions
for next steps.“
Healthier … and richer too!
The posters are up. The first biometric
tests started in September and I’m
looking forward to my first shopping
credits, not to mention discounts on my
health care contributions.
Honestly, who doesn’t want to be
healthier? With this you’re effectively
getting paid for it. My team are
genuinely interested in the Vitality
Program. There’s gonna be some
healthy competition ahead!
Amy Merkley,
VP, Aviation Services
45
00
Smart
engineering
saves
l ves
46
00
Photographer: Staff Sgt. Stacy L Pearson
What could be more important than protecting those
who risk their lives for others—or more challenging?
For over 40 years, Meggitt has been developing new
technology and seeking out new partners to help it do
just that.
E
ver since one of Meggitt’s
pioneering antecedents started
making altimeters in the 1850s, our
designs have protected pilots and crew in
extreme environments. Today, we use our
engineering expertise across the group to
develop products that protect servicemen
and women in combat in the air, on land
and at sea.
Imagine a unit of soldiers fighting in
Afghanistan in recent years. For them,
conventional combat is only one part of the
battle. Helping to rebuild societies riven
by extremism, poverty and chaos is the
long-term goal. But building relationships
with local people and patrolling seemingly
safe villages requires patience and mental
agility as well as physical fitness. And if the
temperatures regularly top 40°C, how do
they keep their cool?
Working with one of the world’s
most innovative personal cooling experts,
we have helped develop and manufacture
a solution: the Wearable Environmental
Control System (WECS) for the US Army’s
Air Soldier program.
Fast fires extinguished in
0.25 seconds
The blast ruptures a fuel line and fire
erupts with lightning speed. With its
extreme heat, high concentrations of
CO 2 and excess pressure, this ‘fast fire’
threatens to suffocate the five soldiers
in the crew compartment and burn them
to death.
Within 0.004 seconds however, the
infrared and ultraviolet sensors in our
Automatic Fire Extinguishing System
(AFES) have detected the fire.
As one of the pioneers in optical
detection, we have 40 years of experience
and, today, we are the only company
to design and manufacture all AFES
components in-house, including both
thermistor and pneumatic detectors.
Inside the armoured vehicle, the
system releases an extinguishing agent,
instantly lowering temperature as it
depletes the environment of fire-feeding
oxygen. The fire is extinguished within
FORCE 10
PROTECTION
1. Automatic fire extinguishing systems
2. Blast-resistant fuel tanks
3. Countermeasure deployment
4. IED-resistant armour
5. Inertia reels and seat belts
6. Integrated secondary flight display
7. Hostile file alert
8. Oxygen at altitude
9. Personnel and vehicle cooling
10. Threat warning indicator
Since WW1, the average weight of a
soldier’s pack has doubled to about 100 lbs
so low weight and low power are critical.
The WECS device weighs just 2.7 kg—
battery included—and measures 89mm by
203mm. Chilled water, circulating through
a vest worn underneath conventional
protective gear, pulls heat from the wearer
and releases it through a heat exchanger.
The system also fits under suits worn by
bomb disposal and biological or chemical
weapons specialists.
Staying cool in combat is not the
only problem. In Afghanistan, the uneasy
peace can erupt into violence without
warning. Imagine a two-unit patrol is sent
out to check a report about a potential
arms cache. As they drive to the village in
question, a huge explosion suddenly rips
out of the ground as an IED explodes and
the first armoured vehicle rolls over.
Since WW1, the
average weight of
a soldier’s pack has
doubled to about
100 lbs so low weight
and low power are
critical
Photographer: Sgt. Ricardo Gomez
Low weight, low power
0.25 seconds. Dazed and a bit bruised but
otherwise unhurt, the soldier nearest
the door kicks it open and helps his unit out
in the daylight.
Soft armour protection
Moments later, the second vehicle is hit,
this time by a land mine. Our triple-layered
soft armour bolted to the turret floor of the
vehicle protects the gunner’s feet and legs.
Its high-performance coated fabric improves
penetration resistance while a layer of
webbing absorbs the blast force and retains
flying debris.
Building relationships
with local people and
patrolling seemingly
safe villages requires
patience and mental
agility as well as physical
fitness. And if the
temperatures regularly
top 40°C, how do they
keep their cool?
At the same time, the underfloor ammo box
threatens to burst through into the crew
compartment and crush the legs of two of
the soldiers. Another layer of soft armour
restrains it, saving the men from injury.
Saving lives from fuel tank fires
You might expect the fuel tank of an
upturned armoured vehicle to be
particularly vulnerable. However, even if hit
directly by anything up to a 50mm round,
our fuel bladders can rapidly self-seal,
encasing holes in a rubber gel, suppressing
the ignition source and stopping leakage. >
47
00
Photographer: Cpl. Bryan Nygaard
SMART ENGINEERING SAVES LIVES
With the risk of fuel
tank fire practically
eliminated, our unit
can use its Bradley
for cover
48
00
Originally designed for helicopter crew
serving in the Vietnam War, the tanks are
manufactured from a highly engineered,
layered composite fabric, handmade and
customised for each application. Since
1971, we have installed more than 200,000
of these crashworthy tanks on helicopters,
virtually putting an end to post-crash
deaths. So far, 1000 have been fitted to
land vehicles and, in scenarios like the
above, continue to save soldiers’ lives.
With the risk of fuel tank fire
practically eliminated, our unit can use
its Bradley for cover. They successfully
locate and lock down the enemy, and wait
in relative safety for reinforcements.
Safety in the air
A number of Meggitt technologies are
saving the lives of servicemen and women
in the air. High above the mountains of
Afghanistan, conventional passenger and
crew oxygen systems are just not up to
the job. Our breathing and distribution
system can compensate for altitude,
supply pressure and demand so the right
volume of oxygen is always available.
The latest model enables up to 16 crew
Reliable real-time
intelligence on the
position and direction
of hostile fire is the
best protection they
can get
The intelligence you need
—and nothing else
Launch a life-saving decoy
—and keep talking to it
We help protect the lives of fixed-wing
crew. F-16 pilots, for example, rely on
the high visibility of our threat-warning
indicators (TWI) to help them concentrate
on critical information in combat.
Our three-inch TWI screens detail
distance, vector and threat type in one
place so pilots can review all critical threat
information at a glance, without being
distracted by the plethora of other data on
the main cockpit display.
Clearly, different air forces face
different threats, so this system allows
on-the-ground support teams to create
customised symbols on a PC to communicate
critical intelligence as concisely as possible.
At the same time, thanks to our compact
design with numerous bezel control and
interface options, the TWI is highly adaptable
and can be integrated into most electronic
warfare systems easily.
Of course, threat warning in itself is
inadequate. Imagine the following scenario.
You’re an F-16 pilot flying a reconnaissance
mission in supposedly secure airspace.
Your TWI flashes up that a high-precision
missile is locking on to your tail. You can’t
get rid of it too quickly. Using one of our ultra-reliable
launchers, you deploy one of the latest towed
decoys, such as the ALE-50, nicknamed the
‘little buddy’ by grateful pilots. Working with
the aircraft’s electronic warfare system, it
can lure an incoming missile away from your
aircraft, or, in this case, jam the enemy’s
tracking radar.
Able to withstand the extremes of
temperature, vibration and g-force common
in air combat, our fibre optic and highvoltage towlines provide the critical link that
make these smart systems possible.
Continued on page 51 >
and passengers to breathe easily up to
35,000ft. Live-fire resistant to .50 calibre,
it’s also light enough for two people to
carry, installing or removing it in minutes
as required.
Countering hostile fire
Since 1971, we have installed more than 200,000
crashworthy tanks on helicopters, virtually
putting an end to post-crash deaths
Photographer: Cpl. Reece Lodder
Think of the helicopter crew called in to pick
up our unit, stranded in a remote village.
Flying into a hostile situation, they’re
constantly under threat and every split
second counts. Suddenly, they’re under
attack. Reliable real-time intelligence on
the position and direction of hostile fire
is the best protection they can get.
Historically, hostile fire indicators could
only determine what was being fired and
from which direction. Today, our radar-based
technology can provide detailed situational
intelligence on any projectile or missile. As
machine gun fire comes within 60 metres,
our system immediately determines whether
fire is hostile or friendly, before detailing
the number and location of firing positions,
weapons being used, and the lethality of
the fire.
The data is fed in turn into the
helicopter’s active protection system,
return fire is accurately targeted and the
three machine gunners on the ground are
pinned down. The helicopter lands safely,
reinforcements help to secure the village and
the two soldiers with injuries are flown out.
Capitalising on a 40-year legacy
of producing small-scale radar tracking
technology, we’re able to create a smaller
and cheaper solution than competitors
with a background in conventional,
larger-scale radar. And that means
more platforms can carry our life-saving
situational awareness systems.
49
00
SMART ENGINEERING SAVES LIVES
A
UTOMATIC FIRE
EXTINGUISHING SYSTEM
I ED ARMOUR
BLAST RESISTANT
FUEL TANKS
FLOOR OF GUN TURRET
HIGH TRACTION RUB
BER UPPER MAT
WEBBING FOR STR
ENGTH
HIGH-PEFORMANC
E COATED FABRIC
self-healing
within two
minutes
REEL S
INERTIA BELTS
T
A
AND SE
Vehicle fires caused by
fuel or hydraulic line
rupture trigger ultraviolet
and infrared detectors
in 0.004 seconds.
Fires extinguished in
0.25 seconds.
ion ejec tor
High-precis
ts, buckle
in
ra
seat rest
chor
an
s,
assemblie
r
webbing fo
d
an
gs
tin
fit
seat belts.
ew
cr
d
an
pilot
PROTECTIN
BODY AND
FIRE
DETECTION
SPEED
0.04s
FIRE
EXTINGUISHED
0.25s
Highly engineered fuel
bladders handmade from
layered composite fabric
and customised for each
aircraft or vehicle platform.
blast risk contained
NO.
INSTALLED ON
HELICOPTER S
SINCE 1971
200,000
REDUCING
FATALITIES
Virtually eliminated
post-crash helicopter
fire deaths.
G
Soft armour gives
additional protec
tion
against today ’s mo
re
powerful mines
and IEDs, in parti
cular
protec ting the fee
t and
legs of armoured
vehicle
crew and passenge
rs.
ALIGNING
SPINE
MEASURE
COUNTER T
DEPLOYMEN
INTEGRATED SECONDARY
FLIGHT DISPLAY
temper ature
vib
at
io
n
G-
fo
rc
es
r
al
Mission-critic
for
components
coys:
life-saving de
ems,
st
sy
g
in
ch
laun
voltage
gh
hi
,
es
in
magaz
and
e
bl
ca
ic
fibre-opt
s.
multi-use reel
Data rich, light-weight,
low-power units give
pilots the information
they need to complete
oper ations and get
home when primary
displays fail.
NO. PRODUCED
TO DATE:
5,000
NO. AIRCR AFT
PROGR AMME S:
30
Our ballistic-powered
inertia reels will haul you
tight back into your seat,
seconds before you go.
With your spine aligned,
you’re ready for the force
of the ejection
50
00
NO. BRA DLE Y
FIGHTING
VEHICLES
FITTED
SO FAR
2000
PERSONAL COOLING
HOSTILE FIRE ALERT
Low-power, lightweight
cooler prevents
dehydration and keeps
soldiers alert, even in
40°C desert combat
conditions.
EFFECTIVE
EVEN AT
40°C
WEIGHT JUST
2.7Kg
SIZE
89mm
x 203mm
Low-cost radar systems
report on any projectile
or missile up to
60 metres away,
determining hostile
or friendly fire, number
and location of shooters,
weapon types and
lethality.
THR
EAT
INDICA WARNING
TOR
XYGEN AT ALTITUDE
O
2
Compensating for
altitude, supply pressure
and demand, the AMOS
MK III ensures the right
volume of oxygen for 16
people up to 35,000 ft.
Live-fire resistant to
.50 calibre.
NO. PEOPLE
SUPPLIED:
16
ALTITUDES TO:
35,000 FT
Stand a
lo
display ne three-inc
h
a
focus o llows pilots to
n miss
io
threat
intellig n-critical
e n ce a
from r
w ay
outine
da
main fl
ight dis ta on
play
RESIST S
CALIBER TO:
.50
> continued from page 49
The latest designs can withstand explosive
deployment, supersonic flight and
afterburner exposure without loss of optical
performance. And thanks to our reel-out,
reel-in systems, the more expensive,
next-generation countermeasures can be
recovered and reused.
Hit? Get home or get out, safely
But Meggitt pilot protection doesn’t stop
there. If a decoy doesn’t protect you 100%
and your damaged flight display is giving
you faulty data, our integrated secondary
flight display could spell the difference
between you getting home or not. Designed
and manufactured by Meggitt Avionics in
the UK, some 5,000 of these lightweight,
low-power standby flight displays have now
been produced for over 30 different aircraft
programmes, saving lives all over the world.
Should the damage force you to bail out,
one of our ballistic-powered inertia reels will
haul you tight back into your seat, seconds
before you go. With your spine aligned, you’re
ready for the force of the ejection.
VEHICLE COOLING
REALTIME
COVER AGE
360�
A IMING CUE
TO SHOOTER
LOCATION
+/-5 TO 15˚
Compact and inexpensive
cooling systems for
critical on-board
elec tronics. Battleproven, and half the size
and cost of competitors’
technologies.
GIVING SOLDIER
SAFETY THE
UPPER HAND
You can explore Meggitt’s force protection
capability on our interactive e-brochure,
Meggitt in a Minute, as part of the launch
of its brand-new defence section in
January 2013. www.meggitt.com/e-tour
Less dramatic, perhaps, but just as
critical, our range of gunner restraints and
high-precision seat belts for helicopter
and aircraft offer pilots and crew the kind
of protection and comfort they need for
everyday safety.
You may only bail out once in a lifetime
but, day in, day out, specialists across the
business are constantly considering how
to protect servicemen and women, keeping
them safe in the extreme environments in
which they operate. •
51
00
Top: (Back row L–R) Scott Lathrope – BSc ME, Stanford, USA; Jeff LeHew – PhD Aeronautics, Cal Tech, USA; Jamie Marshall – MEng Aeronautics,
Southampton, UK; Karl Elkjaer – MSc Physics, Techical University of Denmark. (Middle row L–R) Kyle Hamblin – BSc EE, Akron University, USA;
Farhana Zaman – PhD EE Georgia Tech, USA; Abanob Masoud – BSc ME USC, USA. (Front row L–R) Jesse Lozano – PhD ME, University of California,
USA; Yair Korenblit – PhD ME Georgia Tech, USA; John Borton – BSc ME, Brunel University, UK.
52
00
GRADUATES CHOOSE MEGGITT
BRIGHT
PROSPECTS
ARE THE BEST
RECRUITING
SERGEANT
Meggitt’s growth—both in size and the areas of
advanced technology in which it operates—requires
a constant inflow of new personnel. Finding and
attracting graduates as they emerge from university
is a problem that has been successfully tackled in
a new campaign.
I
t’s not easy finding good staff. Especially
today, when highly-rated graduates
are pursued by top companies eager to
scoop up the best talent.
Increasingly, for example, maths and
technology graduates are poached by nontraditional employers as varied as banks
and Walt Disney, who need their skills in
fields such as algorithms to create complex
financial programmes or the latest
computer-driven rides and attractions.
Aware of the growing competition—
particularly in the shrinking pool of science
and engineering graduates—in early
2012 Meggitt launched a multi-pronged
campaign to attract young high-flyers.
As well as the more obvious
routes—distribution of a dedicated
brochure and attending recruitment
fairs—the group invested substantial
time and effort in creating a specialist
microsite on the company website
(www.meggitt-graduate.com).
This introduced Meggitt to people who
might not have heard of the group, set out
details of what graduates could expect
to experience whilst training in their first
three years and, importantly, provided
examples in the form of interviews from
staff who had joined Meggitt as graduates
or as their second jobs.
Equally as important, however, was
the role played by senior technology and
engineering ‘gurus’ from throughout the
group. As alumni of some of the highestranked academic institutions in the UK,
US, Switzerland and other countries, they
established contact with the deans of their
old universities. The question they asked
was simple: ‘Who among your graduating
class this year would be suitable for
our business?’
T
he result of all this effort? The
successful recruitment of 10 of the best
and the brightest, whose skills will help
propel new technologies and projects and
bring future successes to the group.
Given the existing standard of staff at
Meggitt, graduates had really to impress
the recruiters. In turn, however, the new
recruits have been impressed by what they
have found in the company.
Some of their comments:
“I stopped applying for other jobs when I heard
about the Meggitt programme. The range of
different disciplines in Europe, Asia and the
Americas really stood out.”
John Borton, MEng Mechanical Engineering,
Brunel University, UK. >
Below and left: As well as producing a
dedicated brochure and attending recruitment
fairs, the group invested substantial time and
effort in creating a specialist microsite on the
group website (www.meggitt-graduate.com).
53
00
GRADUATES MEET GURUS
Technology
gurus guide
graduates
Above: Just joined: Jeff Lahew and Scott Lathrope
“Eight months in and I was asked to redesign
a manifold design for 3-D print. The interfaces
were about the only thing that stayed the
same! Now I’m helping to co-ordinate our
research into additive layer manufacture
right across the whole group. If you like new
technologies as much as I do, the opportunities
don’t come much better than that.”
Scott Lathrope, BSc Mechanical
Engineering, Stanford, USA.
When graduate trainees leave
academe for Meggitt, they need
have no fear of losing touch with
cutting-edge thinking from subject
matter experts at the top of their
game. Mark Hancock, Wanda Wolny
and Toby Hutton are three of many.
“ I liked the culture immediately. There’s
a warmth here which feels like a small
company, but the attitude and the
opportunities are global. You get exposed
to a very wide variety of technology and the
commercial side of the business, too.”
Farhana Zaman, Georgia Institute of
Technology, USA.
“ I interviewed with most of the big names in
aerospace in the US, because that’s here I
thought I’d find the R&D opportunities I was
looking for. Meggitt is smaller, yet, in my first
assignment, I’ve been given a blank slate
to design and test a new heat exchanger.
There wasn’t anything like that on any other
programme.“
Jesse Lozano, PhD Mechanical Engineering,
University of California, Riverside, USA.
C
ompliments are always nice to
receive, but Robin Young, Meggitt’s
Group Organisation Development
Director, says these comments have
a greater importance: “The positive
experience of the graduates is likely to have
an ongoing beneficial effect for our future
recruitment.
“These young people will spread the
word among their contemporaries that
Meggitt is a challenging, exciting place to
work. They’re likely to recommend us to
other rising stars. We’re aware that we’re
not as well-known as some other big names
in our fields, so that can only help us.
“And the fact that we can attract such
high-calibre graduates is a testament to the
quality and innovative nature of many of our
research programmes.” •
54
00
Above: Wanda Wolny Group Director, Material Science, Meggitt Sensing Systems
has made piezo-electronics and ceramics her life’s work (see page 48)
Mark Hancock – keeping composites clear
Mark Hancock got into the ice protection field by way of composites. A mechanical engineer by
training, he was designing composite structures at what was then Dunlop Aerospace. “Ice
protection went hand-in-hand with that and very quickly it became apparent to me that the
really exciting stuff we were doing was in ice protection.”
He progressed via the traditional route of an indentured apprenticeship before going
on to take a Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering, followed, he says, by numerous
courses in relevant subjects such as aircraft icing and airworthiness.
He has worked on projects for aircraft types including AgustaWestland’s EH101 Merlin
and Future Lynx military helicopters. Recent projects include working on an ice protection
system for a demonstrator aircraft used by Canadian airframer Bombardier to prove
systems destined for future ‘more electric’ aircraft.
With Sheffield University, Meggitt Polymers & Composites’ facility in Loughborough
and Artus, Meggitt’s smart actuation facility in France, Hancock has also won funding under
the European Union’s Clean Sky initiative for an ELWIPS (Electro-thermal Laminar Wing Ice
Protection System) demonstrator for a business jet.
“We’re positioning ourselves for the future and the advent of the ‘more electric’ aircraft.
We’re not just sitting back on what we’ve done for 20 years,” he says.
Decent
exposure
Cool opportunities in
ice protection introduce
engineers to wider aircraft
design at Meggitt Polymers
& Composites
T
he wing of a modern airliner is one
of the most sophisticated surfaces
in the world. Computers and human
ingenuity combine to eke maximum lift and
minimum fuel-burn out of that finely-honed
piece of metal or carbon fibre.
And it can all be laid to waste by a thin
layer of frozen water.
Just a couple of millimetres of ice on
a critical surface can destroy the wing’s
carefully-calculated profile and erode lift to
such an extent that an airliner with upwards
of 500 crew and passengers on board can
fail to take off, or plummet from cruising
altitude. Over the years several aircraft
have been lost to this cause.
Which makes keeping an aircraft’s
structures clear of ice critical. Meggitt has
a long history of doing precisely that.
Over several decades, it has been a
market leader in the fields of anti-icing and
de-icing. (Anti-icing means never allowing
ice to form; de-icing means accepting the
formation of ice but then applying heat to
dislodge it.)
Traditionally, bleed air—hot air
diverted from the engines—has been
used to do this. The method is still used
but the trend today is towards electrical
heating. This is partly because the carbon
composites that increasingly make up
modern aircraft structures do not like
high-temperature air, partly because the
use of electric heating allows for a more
economical, calibrated application of heat
and partly because the trend is towards
‘more electric’ aircraft that rely less on
traditional pneumatic, mechanical or
hydraulic systems.
To deliver that calibrated approach,
metal foil heating elements are laminated
into structures that make up the critical
leading edges of wings or engine inlets.
Designing the means of keeping these
structures clear of ice is a complex, multistep process, explains Mark Hancock,
engineering director for ice protection
systems and composites at Meggitt
Polymers & Composites.
First, the wing or inlet is modelled and
analysed to see where suspended water
droplets will impinge and form ice. From
that, thermal analysis is used to calculate
how much power will be required in varying
atmospheric conditions to keep it ice-free.
“You look at lots of different icing
conditions and then have to come up with an
algorithm to work out how much power you
need in such-and-such a condition. It’s the
algorithm we develop that’s our intellectual
property—the smart solution that tailors
the power to the environment we’re in.
“We then give a company specialising
in controllers a requirement that includes
the algorithm and they go away and develop
it. With the acquisition of Pacific Scientific
in 2011, we now have greater capabilities in
this area.”
“When we’re looking at materials,
particularly composites, we’re pushing the
boundaries of those materials because
we’re looking at application of high
temperatures to them,” says Hancock.
“Obviously you get a temperature
gradient through the structure. You’re
keeping the surface above freezing but
you’ve got the force-cooling on the surface
and the heating elements could be 100
to 150°C. We’re right on the limit of the
materials we use.”
It’s quite cool for a clever
person to be exposed to
wider aircraft design. I think
what surprises any new
starter is the broad range of
disciplines that we have to
be aware of. It’s a very big
intellectual challenge
Meggitt is also taking the lead on a
project with Canadian aircraft producer
Bombardier to give it the necessary
confidence that electric heating for wing
slats is a viable technology. Slats are
moveable sections on the wing leading edge
that improve lift at low speeds.
requirements checklist
T
o handle this safety-critical area,
Meggitt looks for graduates who have
a general interest in ice-protection
– not in designing a standalone component
but a system then integrating it into the
aircraft as a whole. A systems engineer
with a first degree or masters is ideal.
Meggitt has small teams of around
10 ice protection specialists in both
the UK and US, whose specialisations
include metals and structures as well as
mechanical engineering and electrical
engineering designers.
“The number of people who
understand ice protection is limited. It’s
quite an exciting area where there’s a lot to
learn,” says Hancock.
“It’s quite cool for a clever person to
be exposed to wider aircraft design. I think
what surprises any new starter is the broad
range of disciplines that we have to be aware
of. It’s a very big intellectual challenge. •
55
00
GRADUATES MEET GURUS
Wanda helps set the standard
Wanda Wolny graduated with an MSc in Electronics & Solid State Physics from the
University of Warsaw and has made piezo-electrics and ceramics her life’s work.
Taken on as a research and development engineer in piezoceramic materials by
Danish company Ferroperm, which later became part of Meggitt, she rose to become
managing director of Ferroperm Piezoceramics and is currently Meggitt’s Director,
Materials Science.
She has played key roles in several professional bodies in her field and was the
convenor of a working group preparing standards for piezoceramic materials that
resulted in three IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission) standards. She
co-ordinated several international R&D programmes that resulted in the
Belgium-based Piezoinstitute, of which she became president. She is also a board
member of the Ultrasonic Industry Association.
Piezo-electrics
for bright
sparks
Materials science and
design engineering merge
in Meggitt Sensing Systems’
Danish operation
F
our decades ago, if members of
the general public had heard about
piezo-electrics at all, they knew them
as a ‘space-age’ type of cigarette lighter
from Colibri that eliminated traditional
flints. Today, people would be intrigued
to know of the range of uses they have—
particularly in the medical field.
Heart pacemakers, ultrasonic
imagers, blood clot busters, tumour
destroyers—all use piezo electrics or
piezo-ceramics in some way. Over the years
they have shifted from having primarily
diagnostic functions to therapeutic.
“There has been a very dynamic
development since the 1990s when
European research in this field really took
off,” says Group Director, Material Science
Wanda Wolny of Meggitt Sensing Systems,
based at Elsinore, some 35km north of
Copenhagen.
While previous uses, such as foetal
heart monitoring, were fascinating, new
uses allow more active intervention for
medical conditions.
For example, blood clots used to be
treated with large doses of anti-coagulants
—which raised the risk of serious internal
bleeding elsewhere in the body. Meggitt
56
00
Sensing Systems produces intravenous
ultrasound devices that use tiny piezoelectric transducers that can be inserted
into a vein and use ultrasonic imaging to
locate a clot. This then allows a smaller
dose of the anti-coagulant to be used more
locally and effectively.
ther medical uses include shaping
and forming this ultrasonic flow of
energy to create heat at the point
of focus. This property can be used, for
example, to destroy uterine fibroids in a
swift, non-invasive procedure that allows
the patient to leave hospital the same day
and be back at work the following morning.
Previously, extensive surgery and several
days’ hospitalisation was required.
O
You do everything … and
are expected to know
everything!
High Intensity Focused Ultrasound
(HIFU) has also received US Food and
Drug Administration approval as a quick,
painless treatment for glaucoma. This
will be more effective than standard laser
treatment as ultrasound travels more
deeply into the eye and can be focused
down to an area of around 1mm square.
Meggitt Sensing Systems produces the very
thin, curved piece of piezo material that
focuses the ultrasound so precisely.
This expansion in the uses of piezoelectrics has resulted in similar growth in
professional bodies involved in the field.
Meggitt’s sensing systems division is
a founder member of the Piezo Institute, a
virtual organisation registered in Brussels
that brings together both end-users and
research and development organisations
in this field. Wolny is the president of
the institute, whose members exchange
personnel throughout Europe to further
their experience.
M
eggitt Sensing Systems looks
for materials science or design
engineering graduates when
recruiting in the field of piezo-electrics.
“Typically, when we hire someone
with a materials science background we
have to train them in design engineering,
and vice versa,” says Wolny. “There’s a
gap between the two areas. My impression
has always been that that whenever the
recruits start looking at the product from
these different perspectives they find it
extremely interesting.
“The holistic character of our
work makes it an interesting sector
for graduates. You start with the basic
materials and have contact with the enduser. You work on integration, customise
the device and there’s continuous dialogue
throughout the development process.
“You do everything … and are
expected to know everything!
“That’s why people like to stay with
us. We also promote PhD training,” adds
Wolny. Typically, this involves suitable staff
undertaking an ‘industrial PhD’, which has
the same academic rigour and prestige as
a ‘normal’ doctorate but which involves
the subject of the student’s research
being defined by the company. The PhD
is usually taken in association with the
Industrial University of Denmark, often
with additional study or training abroad, at
establishments such as the UK’s Cranfield
University. •
Work of
friction
Tribologists learn how to
stop airliners after rejected
take-offs at Meggitt Aircraft
Braking Systems
V
1.
It’s clearly and loudly announced by the
co-pilot during every take-off run of every
airliner because it’s the point of no return.
If anything technically untoward happens
after those two syllables are enunciated,
you’re committed to taking off.
If a problem happens beforehand,
however, you stop. Simple, yes? Not when
you’re talking about bringing several
hundred tonnes of metal, fuel and human
beings safely to a halt with a rapidly
diminishing stretch of runway ahead of you.
So when you stamp on the braking pedal,
those brakes have a very tough few seconds
ahead of them.
Which is where Dr Toby Hutton and
his colleagues at Meggitt Aircraft Braking
Systems (MABS) come in. Ever heard of
tribology? Walk this way.
Tribology is the study of friction and
wear. Based in Coventry, UK and Akron,
Ohio, teams of MABS specialists search
for materials that provide better friction, at
lighter weights, perform more consistently
and can cope with the huge stresses
created when the brakes are applied to an
aircraft touching down on a runway—or, in
the most extreme case mentioned above,
a rejected take-off.
In extremis, those brakes can reach
over 1,500°C as they fight to overcome
an aircraft’s momentum. Even a normal
landing will see them reach around 500°C
—considerably hotter than the maximum
setting on a domestic oven. Those brakes
have to absorb, then disperse, that heat.
So, staff work towards the next
generation of carbon-based materials.
They’re world-leaders at it. “We’re a bit of
an ideas machine,” is how Hutton, Manager,
Friction & Structural materials at MABS in
Coventry, describes the company.
way from aviation, for example,
the team is operating at the edge
of science in developing a carbon
composite for an experimental nuclear
fusion reactor in France. Nuclear fusion
is the holy grail of energy production and
although a working reactor is decades
A
away, research continues.
“We’re making material for a very
specialised part of that reactor,” says Hutton.
“It sits at the bottom of the torus-shaped
chamber and is one of the few places where
the plasma can come into contact with the
reactor’s surface.” (Normally the ultra-hot
plasma is suspended away from internal
surfaces by magnetic fields.) The carbon
composite MABS is creating has to deal with
an energy output equivalent to 15MW per m².
But it’s aircraft brakes that form the
bread and butter of MABS’ work. Unlike
those on a car, an aircraft’s carbon brakes
are not a single disk that is clamped by
brake pads on calipers but a series of
interleaved carbon discs, with the entire
package being squeezed together.
MABS scientists constantly strive
to increase the density of carbon-carbon
composites. Higher density enables us
to create brakes that are lightweight but
other important research targets include
high strength, low wear and consistent
performance. “The basic target is to try
and minimise that variability under all
braking conditions between taxiing (the
most benign) and rejected take-offs (the
hardest),” explains Hutton.
Allied to this is research into
sophisticated anti-oxidant paints (the heat
generated by braking can cause oxidation
on non-rubbed surfaces, so protection
is required) and 2000- and 7000 series
aluminium wheel alloys. Stainless steel and
titanium are heavily used in certain parts of
the wheels and braking systems. Steel-based
brakes are used on older types of aircraft.
Shedding light on shedding heat—that’s
MABS’ watchword.
M
eggitt Aircraft Braking Systems
(MABS) was formed in 2008 when
Dunlop Aircraft Braking Systems,
already a Meggitt company, joined with
its long-time US rival, Aircraft Braking
Systems Corporation.
What does MABS look for in the
people it recruits? Apart from academic
qualifications in appropriate subjects,
such as materials sciences, metallurgy,
mechanical engineering, chemistry
or physics, new personnel have to have
“a practical interest in doing things,”
says Hutton.
Being good both in the lab and at
dealing with clients is important. “We’re in
R&D, so we have to be an inquisitive bunch.
I also like them to be good on their feet, in
terms of being able to talk to customers and
in presenting. In between all this, they need
to be good at data analysis.” •
Toby Hutton—fine-tuning friction
Toby Hutton took his first degree in
Material Science Technology at Brunel
University, London before going on to
take a PhD in friction and wear of
carbon-carbon composites for aircraft
brakes at Bath University. During his time
with Meggitt he has become a Chartered
Engineer with the Institute of Materials,
Mining and Mineralogy.
High-profile projects on which
he has worked have included
reducing the time required to create
carbon-carbon composites and the
development of materials able to survive
in the ultra-high temperatures of a
nuclear fusion reactor.
We’re a bit of an ideas
machine. Away from
aviation the team is
operating at the edge of
science in developing a
carbon composite for an
experimental nuclear
fusion reactor in France
57
00
GRADUATES GET INVOLVED
Graduates
reach for
the sky
Variety of work, together with
small, dedicated research teams
and opportunities to develop:
some of the company’s virtues
listed by Meggitt graduates, says
journalist, Alan Dron.
L
istening in on a colleague interviewing
recent and not-so-recent graduates in
Meggitt’s workforce, several themes
became apparent.
Many interviewees said they appreciated
the opportunities for further development
they had encountered since joining the group.
They also commented on the variety of work
they could expect to undertake, plus the
ability to ‘make a difference’ by being in small,
specialist teams.
Apart from those factors, however,
there was another underlying impression:
That they were enjoying themselves.
Admittedly, people are usually
circumspect when talking to journalists
and you wouldn’t really expect anyone to
mutter darkly about their employer to a
reporter. But people seemed genuinely
engaged by their work and aware they had a
greater range of opportunities to keep them
interested than would be the case in many
large companies.
A good company wants to hold on
to good staff and backing engineers’ or
scientists’ ambitions to improve themselves
—by earning an MBA, for example—
undoubtedly helps both parties. Meggitt
gets a staff member who is better-qualified
and able to move into higher management
58
00
roles. In turn, the staff member is likely to
regard his employer in a warmer light and
stay longer, giving the company the benefit
of his or her increased expertise. Everyone
benefits.
This is especially important when,
for a variety of reasons, the number of
engineering graduates in Western Europe
has been steadily shrinking. With vacancies
People seemed genuinely
engaged by their work and
aware they had a greater
range of opportunities to
keep them interested than
would be the case in many
large companies
attracting perhaps just two or three
applicants where once they would have
attracted 20, it makes good business sense
to hold on to talented staff.
Additionally, training is often cited as an
indicator of a good company; an organisation
that does not offer decent training
programmes may save money in the short
“It’s the right size to have an
impact. You’re involved in
everything—operations,
sales and marketing, not just
engineering.”
Chris Hopper, Engineering Director of Sealing
Solutions, Meggitt Polymers & Composites
“Nothing is served up on a silver plate.
You have to take the lead and propose
ideas—but I don’t remember anything
being refused.”
Dominique Vez, Applied Research & Technology Manager,
Meggitt Sensing Systems
run, but is likely to lose out over the long
term as better-trained personnel’s abilities
filter down into a company’s performance
and, ultimately, its bottom line.
recurring theme of the interviews
was that Meggitt was big enough to
be significant (10,000 employees,
almost £1.5bn turnover) but small enough
to allow individuals to make their mark
(36 operating companies mean that
engineering and research teams typically
have tens, not hundreds, of personnel).
“If you want to be hands-on and make
things happen, you’re allowed to be. You’re
not just another number in a big business,”
commented Chris Hopper, engineering
director of sealing solutions at Meggitt
Polymers & Composites. “It’s the right
size to have an impact. You’re involved
in everything—operations, sales and
marketing, not just engineering.”
Dominique Vez, Applied Research
& Technology Manager, Meggitt Sensing
Systems in Switzerland, agreed that staff
with ambition and drive tended to prosper:
“Nothing is served up on a silver plate.
You have to take the lead and propose
ideas—but I don’t remember anything
being refused.”
A
“It was exciting, because it was a
secret programme at the time.
Our customer was typically
German—very professional,
very demanding, very organised.
I remember waiting nervously
on a phone line to hear the result
of the first flight.”
Marc Greenshield,
Director Product Development (UK),
Meggitt Aircraft Braking Systems
And the range of fields in which
Meggitt works means there are plenty of
niches for personnel to investigate.
For example, “Meggitt Sensing
Systems in San Juan Capistrano, California
appealed to me because it sounded like I
would have a decent level of responsibility
right away. I would be ‘the guy’ for piezoelectric accelerometers,” said James
Letternau, transducer engineer.
S
ome of those niches could be quite
intriguing, noted Marc Greenshield,
who worked on Meggitt Aircraft
Braking Systems’ first electric brake
(that is, one that does not use traditional
hydraulics for its effect), which appeared
on a jet-powered unmanned air vehicle,
the Cassidian-produced Barracuda. “It
was exciting, because it was a secret
programme at the time. Our customer was
very professional, very demanding, very
organised. I remember waiting nervously
on a phone line to hear the result of the first
flight.”
Highly sensitive programmes still
feature in some Meggitt companies’
portfolios: “There’s some stuff we can’t
talk about,” admitted Greenshield. >
59
00
GRADUATES GET INVOLVED
“When they showed me my itinerary, I thought there must be some mistake: I
went to Germany, New York and China.”
Hannah Wiltshire, Design Engineering Manager, Heatric
A
nother unusual aspect of Meggitt
is that a graduate’s initial three-year
training programme will almost
always include a nine-month stint abroad.
In most companies, foreign postings are
fairly rare, but in Meggitt they’re part of
the landscape.
Indeed, some people find themselves
reaching for their passport even before
they’re officially on the payroll.
Returning for a second summer’s
industrial placement with heat exchange
specialists Heatric while undertaking her
engineering degree, Hannah Wiltshire
admitted that “when they showed me
my itinerary, I thought there must be
some mistake: I went to Germany, New York
and China.”
Foreign postings are generally
regarded by personnel as good news: they
not only broaden an employee’s outlook, they
bring experience in dealing with different
nationalities—a valuable commodity in an
increasingly global marketplace.
erhaps the most surprising episode
to come out of the interviews to which
I listened involved also involved a
spell overseas, but had nothing to do
with a Meggitt project.
P
“The San Juan Capistrano operation appealed to
me because it sounded like I would have a decent
level of responsibility right away. I would be ‘the guy’ for piezo-electric accelerometers”
James Letternau, Transducer Engineer, Meggitt Sensing Systems
If you want to be
hands-on and make
things happen, you’re
allowed to be. It’s the
right size to have
an impact
James Letternau, mentioned earlier, was
able to work from Kazakhstan for nine
months while adopting a daughter from the
central Asian state after the paperwork to
bring her back to the US went pear-shaped.
“I did the best I could to support my project
from where I was but Meggitt gave me the
freedom to support what was important to
me at the time.”
Having been around the block a few
times, I can tell you that the number of
companies who’d be prepared to give an
employee that degree of leeway is pretty
damn small. •
To read the personal reflections on the
graduate experience at Meggitt, visit the
group’s new graduate careers microsite on
www.meggitt-graduate.com.
60
00
Bookmark our story
While preparations are underway for the launch of a brand-new
Meggitt website, we’ve been busy telling our story to investors,
engineering graduates and customers through a range of print
and on-line media.
www.meggitt-investors.com
www.meggitt-graduate.com
www.meggitt.com/e-tour
Meggitt’s investor relations microsite
went on-line in September 2012.
Our graduate recruitment microsite,
launched in March 2012, has been the
subject of many updates, including
endorsements from our latest intake
as well as in-depth features on the
experience of established engineering
recruits. Download the complementary
brochure or ask your local HR
representative for a copy.
Farnborough International Airshow saw the
launch of an updated Meggitt in a Minute,
which now includes all Pacific Scientific
Aerospace’s capabilities.
Meggitt in a Minute’s defence chapters
now include a special section on force
protection, as featured in the pages of
Review.
Coming soon: Meggitt in a Minute energy
market features and a guide to our training
systems’ facilities in Canada, the UK and
the United States.
Graduate opportunities
If David and Goliath were on
the same side, where would
you want to be?
We work on some of the most demanding challenges in
engineering: from saving lives in the air, on land and at sea,
to safeguarding the future of the natural world. Over the last
150 years, we have grown to become one of the world’s
leading aerospace companies.
But we are still small enough that your efforts will make
a real difference from day one. You’ll go on international
placements as part of our graduate programme and,
as you learn, you’ll get more opportunity to guide the
future of our business tomorrow—just like the Stanford
graduates who joined us in years gone by.
We’ve got the best of both worlds in one company.
Why look anywhere else?
Visit www.meggitt-graduate.com
or contact [email protected]
to find out about our three-year programme.
Expert mentoring, international placements,
on-the-job and formal training—it’s got all
the challenges and support you’ll need
to become a world-class engineer.
This publication The Meggitt Review is
Meggitt PLC’s magazine for employees.
Headquartered in the UK, Meggitt is an
international group operating in North
America, Europe and Asia.
Meggitt Known for its specialist extreme
environment engineering, Meggitt is a
world leader in smart engineering for
extreme environments within aerospace,
defence and energy.
www.meggitt.com
Editor and reporter Fiona Greig
Telephone/fax +44 (0) 1202 597587
Address Meggitt PLC
Atlantic House, Aviation Park West,
Bournemouth International Airport,
Christchurch, Dorset, BH23 6EW, UK
Design and Production Hybrid Creative
www.hybridthinking.co.uk

COVER STORY Surfin` gas Heatric is booming

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