Excellence in every detail

Excellence in every detail
Excellence in every detail

Nick Guttridge, executive vice-president, business development at Gardner Aerospace, examines the benefits and challenges of supplying to Airbus for the A350 XWB.

Nick Guttridge, executive vice-president, business development at Gardner Aerospace, one of the world's leading detailed parts manufacturers, examines the benefits and challenges of supplying to Airbus for the A350 XWB.
When the Airbus board gave the company Authorisation To Offer (ATO) the A350 in December 2004, a chain of attention-grabbing events was set in motion. Airbus announced the industrial launch of the A350 programme in October 2005.

Following discussions with customers, Airbus announced a decision to revise elements of the aircraft's initial design in 2006. The company also took the opportunity to rename the aircraft the A350 XWB (Extra Wide Body). The first order for the new A350 XWB from launch customer Qatar Airways was received at the Paris Airshow in June 2007.

As Airbus pursued ambitious entry-into-service plans, the maiden flight of the A350 XWB took place in Toulouse in June 2013. Airbus now confidently described the A350 XWB as “the world's most efficient large twin-engined commercial aircraft”. After an intense flight test programme, European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) type certification for the A350-900 was secured in September 2014, followed by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) type certification in November 2014.

Marking the most significant milestone of all, January 2015 saw Qatar Airways operate the first commercial flight of the A350 XWB, from Doha to Frankfurt.

It's in the detail

From the ATO in 2004 through to the first revenue flight, the aviation industry and the world's media watched the exceptional progress of the A350 programme. Nonetheless, whilst high-profile major achievements naturally grabbed the headlines, Airbus always knew that excellence on a grand scale can only ever be achieved through excellence in every small detail.

The entire Airbus supply chain had to perform outstandingly to ensure the success of the programme. The pressure to reach the very highest standards and to meet the aggressive timescales flowed to every engineer working on every part, however small. Even now the aircraft is flying commercially, no one is relaxing! That commitment to exceptional performance and on-time delivery remains as important as ever before.

At Gardner Aerospace, we are very proud that our client list includes OEM giants such as Airbus and equally proud to be involved in projects as prestigious as the A350 XWB programme. The many detailed parts we provide to the programme include:

• the pylon secondary structure for the -900 variant (which we deliver as a completed sub-assembly consisting of parts manufactured from (mostly titanium) sheetmetal, 3-, 4- and 5-axis machined parts, and bought out fuel pipes, as well as electrical harnesses and numerous items of standard hardware. The hard sheetmetal parts are principally manufactured in our Mazeres facility near Toulouse. The hard metal machined parts are made at our Hull, UK location. Final assembly is carried out at Mazeres and the product is then delivered to the Airbus St Eloi factory in Toulouse, which manufactures pylons for the entire Airbus product range;

• various individual sheetmetal and machined parts for the pylon which, again, are mainly manufactured in Mazeres and Hull before being delivered through Mazeres to Airbus at St Eloi;

• items generally classified as Non-Standard B Brackets (NSBBs). These items range widely from simple brake-pressed parts through to sizeable assemblies including machined and sheetmetal parts, as well as metal-formed pipes and tubes. Many of these items were originally required in extremely short timescales. In fact, in many cases, we had to deliver items only a few days after the designs had been finalised and were made by our speed shops in the UK and France. To date, we have provided NSBB items to Airbus facilities in the UK and Germany (for the wing) and France and Germany (for the fuselage) as well as to other tier 1 aerostructure customers in the US and elsewhere in Europe. Most of these NSBB parts have been made by our operations in Derby, Basildon and Broughton but, as A350 XWB production ramps up, we plan to transfer much of this work to our lower-cost manufacturing operations in Poland and India;

• trailing edge machined parts, which are generally machined parts made from aluminium, providing strength and reinforcement to the trailing edge composite main spar.

Winning repeat business

Having mentioned how proud we are of our client list, I should mention the satisfaction we feel in securing so much repeat business. We always seek feedback from our customers to understand how we can better meet their needs in the future.

Throughout our involvement in the A350 programme, Airbus has acknowledged our very high ‘On Time In Full' (‘OTIF') performance. We know one of our strengths is our industrial footprint. In particular, our expanding operations in Poland and India which mean we can transfer the manufacture of certain parts to those locations when the design of those parts has been frozen and stabilised. This ability to offer low-cost, long-term support is a key part of our strategy. Furthermore, customers including Airbus know we have the capability – and importantly the attitude – to be very responsive in the early phases of a programme, when design changes can be considerable and lead times challenging. For example, to respond to urgent requirements for fuselage NSBBs, we were able to install the necessary new machinery and 40 operatives into Derby in just three weeks. We were therefore ready to start manufacturing as soon as Airbus delivered the drawings to us.

Another important factor in having a strong relationship with an OEM is your own supply chain. Airbus knows we are very capable of managing complex and global supply chains and therefore can ensure the best value, highest quality and on time delivery performance. Given our multiple and global manufacturing locations, we have well established arrangements with our key suppliers who have established distribution centres close to Gardner Aerospace's locations, whether in the UK, France, Poland or India.

The story of the A350 XWB is really just beginning. We look forward to continuing our small, but detailed part in that story.

www.gardner-aerospace.com

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