For complete write-ups please visit
www.avm-mag.com Norman Continued from p 26
To some extent, one might argue that politics can have an effect on an industry like MRO, depending on tendencies toward matters like regulation, trade and general industry support. However, the strongest direct impact on the MRO industry and on our own business is the health of the airlines, driven of course by the health of the regional and global economies. There is no question that politics plays a role in outcomes there over time, but it is only one of many more factors that work together to create outcomes—for better or for worse. How’s the regulatory environment right now? Is there any legislation coming up that might impact your business? The MRO industry in the United States is in a slightly better regulatory state of affairs than it was a year ago with the recent agreement on long term FAA reauthorization. The prolonged period before agreement, with some 23 “short term extensions” of the expired authorization having created many unknowns for everyone, reduced resources for the FAA and produced a lack of clarity on many initiatives and programs. We thankfully can once again move forward with our regulatory partners and peers with the new, multi-year agreement. We are always on guard for legislation or initiatives that may be misguided or based on misunderstanding of the important safeguards our industry has standardized over the years. Far too often, our industry has unfortunately had to pay a high price through onerous regulation and barriers to business—resulting in financial impact and job losses. We consider our membership in and work with the Aeronautical Repair Station Association (ARSA) to be an important and effective means of advocating against these kinds of threats. What will be the biggest challenges your business will face in the next three to five years? Regular cycles of economic prosperity followed by challenges facing our airline customers seems to have become a norm, with direct effect on the health of our business and that of our peers. There does not seem to be a break in that cycle which has forced the need for important adjustments in maintenance practices and processes in a continuing drive toward efficiency. The shift in operating fleets to more
efficient and less-maintenance intensive aircraft types will present a growing challenge to MRO providers around the globe. Providers will need to find new ways to make effective use of their resources and generate ongoing top and bottom line results. Also facing our industry is the increasing need for qualified, enthusiastic employees.
Luzzatto Continued from p 25
and core development capabilities, machining and protective barriers coating expertise and advanced hot-section repair technology. We worked hard to develop this technology and Intellectual Property— now the question is how to best deploy it. We have a variety of strategic alternatives in front of us, choosing the right one is probably our biggest challenge right now. What changes are you making to your business to adapt to the times? Two of the biggest opportunities we’re pursuing will support our ability to adapt to the changing environment, and grow the business at the same time. Organically, we’re looking to grow our successful customer- based service center model. In many cases, once we have a long term service agreement in place we follow it with on-site Chromalloy personnel. This approach really cements the relationship with the customer. New product or service introduction, increased usage of salvage repair and issue resolution are all streamlined and simplified through this approach. Inorganic opportunities include significantly beefing up our merger and acquisition activities. Over the past three years we’ve gone to great length to further develop our in-house Intellectual Property, as evidenced by our new casting and core facility in Tampa, FL, and our new Engineering Center of Excellence in Palm Beach Gardens, FL. Now we need to look for the right add- ons to strengthen the business for the future.
Forton Continued from p26
What changes should companies be making to adapt to the times? Community involvement. Companies like AAR Corp are doing this now by offering tours for middle school students to see their operation. They have also teamed up with local 147 schools for apprenticeship programs. A few corporate operations I know of are employing 147 school students as apprentices. Another opportunity is career days and science fairs at local schools. Many of our PAMA chapters and members get involved in these. We need our industry to invest in this and recognize its importance.
Brant Continued from p26
Do presidential (or global) politics impact your business? Yes, our industry is susceptible to global politics, just as many other industries. Comments from senior government officials regarding aviation and corporate aviation can particularly have a positive or negative impact on the industry—during the years we have seen both.
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54 Aviation Maintenance |
avm-mag.com | April / May 2012
What will be the biggest challenges your business will face in the next three to five years? We like to call them opportunities at Cessna—a few opportunities we foresee is keeping up with emerging technologies, growing in a rapidly changing world economy and into emerging markets and most importantly staying ahead of our rising customer expectations. As a service network, we strive to predict what the customer is looking for next and finding solutions to fulfill those desires before they even know they had them—both domestically and internationally to stay out in front of emerging markets with service expansion. With nine U.S. Citation Service Centers, one in Paris, our Valencia, Spain facility opening this year; 18 Mobile Service Units in the U.S. and two international MSU’s; our Air Response Team airplane and parts distribution/service facilities in Singapore and Prague, we need to keep the momentum going and find the next best way to serve our global customer base while recruiting more into the Cessna family. What changes are you making to your business to adapt to the times? As a company, Cessna’s focus on the future is to continue to innovate our product stream, build out our service center network to serve our global customer base and create great products our customers want to buy. The Citation Service Center network is here to support those initiatives. Our service network has a solid reputation for quality and efficiency, but we are continually looking at ways to adapt to the current environment and meet the needs of our customers. Recently, we have created maintenance programs that allow customers a much more streamlined process for purchasing and scheduling routine maintenance — which we have received great feedback on. We have also restructured our organization a bit to give our maintenance technicians a more direct route to making quick decisions so we can get the customer back in their airplane sooner. Again, it all goes back to maintaining our customer relationships, so if they ask for us to adapt, we adapt.
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