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Aerospace Components Manufacturers, Inc.

P.O. Box 736, 1090 Elm Street Rocky Hill, CT 06067 (860) 513-3205 FAX (860) 529-5001

www.aerospacecomponents.org E-mail: alsamuel@acm-ct.org

The ACM Update & Calendar (and previous issues) are also available for viewing on the ACM website.

ACM has scheduled three Special Events – Please SAVE These Dates!

ACM Trade Show

March 21, 2007 2:00pm – 7:30pm

Hartford – Windsor Marriott Hotel featuring Keynote Address by

Mr. Patrick Dempsey, President, Barnes Aerospace Invitations and Response Form have been emailed;

Please respond by February 15th

Annual President’s Meeting May 10, 2007

8:00am CBIA Auditorium, Hartford

A Presentation by Pierre Chao

Director, Defense Industrial Initiatives and Senior Fellow, Intl. Security Program

Center for Strategic & International Studies, Washington, DC May 21st at 3:00pm

University of Hartford’s Wilde Auditorium Member’s Reception will follow Presentation

CY 2006Estimate of

CY 2007

SALES & MARKETS$'s-Total Annual Sales: $966,050,000 $1,080,314,000

$'s-Sales RECEIVED from OTHER ACM members

$15,751,719 $15,095,000

$'s-Sales PLACED with OTHER ACM members

$16,616,884 $19,797,000

$'s-Sales Volume w/ UTC $245,084,000 $278,641,000

Based on Total Annual Sales: % Sales Comml Aerospace 43.7% 43.7% % Sales Military Aerospace 39.2% 39.7% % Sales Ground Turbine 8.8% 9.0% % Sales Other 8.3% 7.6%

Total 100% 100%

% Sales in U.S. 88.8% 87.3% % Sales Export 11.2% 12.7%

Total 100% 100%

EMPLOYMENTNo. of Employees 4,090 4,434

PLANT FACILITYSquare Footage 2,650,550 2,756,950

Sales per Employee (average) $198,474 $207,414

Number of Companies Responding: 38

Business Development ● The Business Development Team met on January 17th. Results of ACM’s Year-End Business Survey (right) were presented, representing input from 38 member firms. The look- ahead at CY2007 indicates ACM members conservatively represent more than $1.1 billion in annual sales and support over 4500 employees. Adchem Manufacturing Technology’s Michael Polo introduced Stephen Young of Mentor Business Group as this meeting’s featured speaker. Stephen’s background includes Pratt & Whitney, where he was legal counsel in business development, Carrier, as an operations officer with various Carrier-owned overseas businesses and most recently, President of Praxair Energy Solutions. He presently is the principle of Mentor Business Group, a business venture development services firm supporting small to mid sized U.S. businesses in start up, expansion and supply chain planning. Stephen’s began his discussion, “Going Global with ACM”, stating “if it can be digitized, it can be outsourced”, a quote from Tom Friedman’s “The World is Flat”. Stephen asked ‘what does going global mean?’ and ‘why go global?’ in discussing ‘what, when, where and how to go global”, all from the perspective of the small to mid-sized supplier in the aerospace industry. Using comparisons with a financial balance sheet, Stephen suggested looking at your firm’s revenues, costs, profit and sustainability; if those factors are acceptable, ‘don’t go global now but watch the trends’. ‘Evaluate how long positive income statements will remain so and use global expansion to better fill your future financials and prevent you from being squeezed’. Understand the ‘big picture’ of your industry, the ‘small picture’ of your firm, and decide where it is you want to go. In answering the question, ‘should you go global?’, he suggested ‘ask what your customers want’ and then conduct a thorough SWOT (Strengths / Weaknesses / Opportunities / Threats) analysis to help in evaluating the options. Stephen offered his belief in the value of smaller firms collaborating, summarizing “know before you go, know your objectives, evaluate your opportunities and then, get going!” Stephen’s presentation is available on ACM’s website; go to Member Login, File Library, Business Development and download, Steve Young Present to BusDev Team Globalizing ACM 1-17-6.ppt Stephen Young may be contacted at: Mentor Business Group 904-491-5950 email: youngscope@aol.com ● The next Team meeting is scheduled for Tuesday, February 20th at 8:00am at CERC, Rocky Hill.

Progressive Manufacturing ● ACM’s Progressive Manufacturing Team meeting, held at Birken Mfg on January 11th, drew 31 persons from 17 member firms to discuss and exchange their experiences with UTC’s Solumina Operation Process management software. Variations of Solumina are being implemented at both Pratt & Whitney and Sikorsky Aircraft. When deployed, suppliers must complete the Solumina inspection record transaction for each part to be capable of printing a packing slip / label for delivery. The Team discussed process certification issues in general and Solumina’s requirements, using a live hookup of the internet based software. Members indicated while entering Solumina inspection results will become a basic requirement, their remains the need to retain a paper backup as a formal quality record. Discussion by the more experienced users, as well as new users, indicated Solumina warranted additional time at future meetings to share lessons learned and best practices. ● The next meeting of the Progressive Manufacturing Team will take place on Thursday, February 15th at 7:30am at the offices of LVSI in East Windsor. LVSI’s Tom DeForge will host this meeting and discuss the concept “Autonomation”. Of the several elements that make up the Toyota production system model, Autonomation is one of the concepts that is mostly misunderstood and not taken advantage of in the relentless drive to take waste out of a process. Tom will present short, shop floor video clips of this concept in action. Please plan to attend and see how it can fit into your future kaizen events! ● Members sharing their kaizen events has long been one of the most productive practices of ACM. Members attend and actively participate in other’s events, offering their experience and assistance or to observe in preparation for conducting a similar event. ACM encourages members to forward information regarding future scheduled events; ACM will send emails to the membership announcing the event along with a brief overview and contact information for those wish to participate. ● Members are reminded that ACM has funding, through a grant from the Connecticut Dept of Economic & Community Development, to assist in cost sharing of lean seminars, workshops and courses that offer training for individuals. Please contact Al Samuel at the ACM Office to answer questions or to determine whether your training plans are eligible. ● Continuing with the thought of sharing and learning from other’s kaizen events, read about benchmarking at Trumpf. Bob Castonguay, Continuous Improvement (SYNCRO) Manager at Trumpf Inc. shares their monthly Continuous Improvement newsletter, available on ACM’s website at Member Login; File Library; Progressive Manufacturing; SYNCHRO_ January07_ newsletter.pdf. For additional information, contact Bob Castonguay at 860-255-6625. ● Feedback from our February 23rd “Introduction to Lean Principles” workshop, facilitated by Connstep, was excellent. Held at Barnes Windsor Division, eight ACM firms participated in a daylong series of detailed simulations demonstrating the improvements possible with a changeover to lean manufacturing and production management. Additional workshops may be scheduled; please advise Al Samuel at the ACM office of your interest. ACM is also discussing a similar workshop relating to Lean Improvements in the Office Environment.

● The February 6th “Lean as a Growth Strategy” seminar, facilitated by Ed Miller of Strategy Development Services and taking place at Trumpf (Farmington) has been sold out. ● Tom DeForge advises a weeklong “Train the Trainer” workshop will begin on February 12th. This is the 64th time Tom has facilitated this workshop; practice how to make effective training presentations, facilitate team involvement and problem solving, and monitor continuous process improvements. Participants will be well prepared in the use of the analytical tools of the Toyota Production System and have the necessary skills to begin the implementation of a “Lean Manufacturing” process at their respective locations. Please contact the ACM Office to request a reservation at the discounted and cost-share price. ● John Kravontka, President, Fuss & O’Neill Manufacturing Solutions LLC, Manchester, CT 860-646-2469 x5699 and longtime ACM member offers (see, right) a ‘single point lesson’ as a visual best practice to help foster the spreading of game changing ideas leading to improved safety, quality, lead times and profit.

A Message from Jim Womack of the Lean Enterprise Institute commenting on

“More Thinking About Lean Transformation”

Recently we at the Lean Enterprise Institute have started a new research project trying to answer a simple question: “What is the best way to conduct a lean transformation?”

This is not a new question, of course. A decade ago Dan Jones and I proposed an “Action Plan” in our book Lean Thinking. We advised readers of the first four steps in transforming their enterprise: find a change agent, obtain the core lean knowledge, seize or create a crisis, and then map your value streams to determine the current situation and to envision future states.

The difference now is that lean thinking is fast becoming the norm rather than the exception for managers. And a large number of organizations have already taken the first four steps. Yet no one would say they are truly lean. The question therefore is, “Once you have a change agent, the core knowledge, a crisis, and maps for many of your processes, how do you most effectively transform your complete enterprise?”

The truth is that we don’t know. We wouldn’t be conducting research if we did! But we have some hypotheses I want to share:

Our first hypothesis is that it’s critical to start by answering the question of purpose. What problems do customers want your organization to solve for them and what are the most critical needs of your organization? Dan Jones and I have found in recent years that customers often have more profound needs behind their expressed wants for specific goods or services. An organization that can identify these fundamental needs and truly solve customer problems will have a much better chance of succeeding as a lean enterprise.

--Continued on Page 8--

Workforce Development ● The Workforce Development Team met at Aerospace Techniques on January 24th. The following are courses having completed since the previous Team meeting or are currently in progress; feedback from students is reported as positive.

Please contact the ACM office regarding suggestions for additional courses to be scheduled. ACM’s course syllabus is available on the website library; go to Member Log-in, Library, Workforce Development and download (or view): WFD Course Syllabus a-o Sep, 2005.pdf. Cliff Seipold advised Smith’s has contracted with Connstep to deliver a 3 day program on Internal Auditing, addressing system and product related audits. Cliff will update the Team at the next meeting regarding this course. Team members discussed the assessment of employees to determine their need/placement for ACM courses. Two assessment tests, customized by the WorkForce Team from materials provided by Asnuntuck CC in 2002 are available from the ACM website library. The file, “Math Assessment Tests.doc”, is a test of arithmetic, fractions, decimals, algebra and basic trig. “Blueprint Reading Assessment Test.doc” offers three drawings and examines the understanding of dimensioning, tolerances and drawing notes. Both files include the test answers; to download, go to the ACM website, Member Log-In, File Library, and click on WorkForce Development.

Course Date (Start)

No. of Days

Date(End)

Host Company or Location

Participants

BluePrint Reading 10/3/2006 10 12/12/2006 Barnes Windsor Sterling MachineStowe MachineKamaticsAerodyne AlloysSterling EngineeringBASF

GD&T 10/4/2006 10 12/13/2006 Sterling Machine Sterling MachineStowe MachineChromalloy ConnecticutKaman FuzingSterling Engineering

BluePrint Reading 10/5/2006 10 12/14/2006 Barnes Windsor Barnes WindsorBluePrint Reading 10/11/2006 10 12/20/2006 WGI WGIBluePrint Reading 11/15/2006 10 1/24/2007 Smiths Aerospace Smiths Aerospace

12/5/2006 12 2/27/2007 MTU AENA MTUHowmetDeltaSterling Machine

Use of Measurement Tools 12/14/2006 7 2/1/2007 Delta Industries Delta IndustriesStowe Machine

Shop Math Level 1 1/9/2007 9 3/6/2007 Sterling Machine Sterling MachineAcceleronDelta

GD&T 1/10/2007 10 3/14/2007 Barnes Windsor Barnes WindsorBASFSterling MachineStowe MachineCBS MfgKamatics

1/10/2007 12 4/4/2007 MTU AENA MTUBASFHowmetSterling MachineAerodyne AlloysBodycote

First Line Supervisors Development

First Line Supervisors Development

● Al Samuel briefed the Team on a discussion by the ACM Board of Directors relating to development of an apprenticeship program. Apprentice training was one of the factors that brought the founding members of ACM together in 1999. The Board discussed the concept of initiating an ACM sponsored apprentice program, believing members would have sufficient interest and be willing to participate and financially support a program offering access to the apprentices. To initiate such a program will require an individual to plan, recruit students and manage its administration. Members are requested to forward their comments to the ACM Office regarding this concept and as well as recommendations for potential managers. ● Mark O’Bryan, Regional Sales Manager, and James Vickers, Director of Sales, of Tooling University briefed the Team on their internet-based machining (and related) skills training product. ToolingU, located in Cleveland, OH, started in 2000 as in in-house training program for Jergens Inc and now, as an independent company offers 280+ individual classes; over 25,000 students were reported having been provided access. Courses are offered as individual student’s subscriptions allowing the student to proceed at their best pace; most classes are intended to run for approx 1 to 1½ hours. Web access allows firms to customize the training program as students have the ability of training at work or at home. Of particular interest is the audio recitation within each lesson, an option which offers students with limited reading capability the opportunity to maximize the value of the training. Classes include machining and inspection skills, welding, shop safety, maintenance, etc; a sample is shown (right) and the complete listing is available at ToolingU’s website, www.toolingu.com. Training in CNC controls for GE Fanuc and Haas is available, with Mazak available soon. The CNC class includes an online simulation, allowing the student to better understand the controller’s operation. Administrative services are a part of the overall program and include pre and post testing, reporting, and scheduling. The training is priced on a “per seat” basis for a 12 month period. Vickers advised discounts are available for volume purchases and indicated a willingness to address broader discounts as a function of the overall business volume from ACM’s membership. Members may arrange to” test drive” the program for a 30 day period by contacting Mark O’Bryan at 781-369-1428 or mob@toolingu.com. ACM members are requested to feedback comments or advise of their intent to subscribe to the ACM Office. ● The WorkForce Development Team will hold its next meeting on Thursday, February 22nd at 8:00am at the offices of Connstep in Rocky Hill. In addition to Team business, Connstep will lead a discussion on their MOST entry-level operator training program. Please plan to attend to learn more about MOST and hear feedback from its current participants.

A sample of classes from the ToolingU catalog

Consolidated Purchasing ● The Purchasing Team met on January 9th at Barnes Windsor Airmotive Division, East Granby. Discussions were broad and members shared information regarding their latest thinking in procurement of product liability insurance, safety programs resulting in lowered workman’s comp insurance and the cost of raw materials. Kirk Smallidge updated members on the market for titanium, whose pricing has recently stabilized and nickel-based steel alloys, whose price continues on a slower, but upward trend. Barnes Airmotive reported having turned over their shop’s crib operations to Turtle & Hughes and was pleased with the result. ● The Team’s next meeting will be held at Delta Industries, East Granby on February 13th at 11:30am. This is a working lunch meeting, courtesy of Delta; please RSVP to the ACM Office. ● Suppliers having current Agreements with ACM are:

Supplier: Key Contact: Telephone: Shop Supplies, Abrasives, Cutting Tools, etc

Turtle & Hughes Lynn Haas 203-497-1559

Gage Calibration/Repair/Sales L.F. O’Leary Co. Inc. Michael O’Leary 781-331-3450

News from ACM Members

Please forward significant company news and announcements to Allen Samuel at alsamuel@acm-ct.org for posting on the ACM website and publication in the UPDATE.

--continued from Page 4-- “More Thinking About Lean Transformation”

Similarly, most organizations have a range of needs themselves – to grow, to increase margins, to preserve cash, to retain talented employees, etc. But what are the few critical internal needs that the organization can tackle right now in order to truly prosper?

When we ask simple questions about customer and organizational purpose and which value streams address them, we often find that managers – lower, middle, and upper as well -- don’t know. And this makes the lean transformation much harder because unimportant wants and needs may be tackled -- even the wrong value streams -- instead of the critical few that really matter. In the worst case, earnest managers may simply apply lean tools at random to every value stream in the hope that wants and needs will automatically be addressed. Yet this rarely happens.

Our second hypothesis is that it is critical for someone to accept the responsibility for transforming each of the critical value streams, each vital process. For value streams that flow only through one department or function, value-stream leadership is easy (or at least easier.) However, the most critical value streams – product development from concept to launch, fulfillment from order through delivery, support of the customer through the life cycle of their goods and services -- flow horizontally toward the customer through many parts of the organization and over extended periods of time. And here we have little experience with the right formula.

--continued on Page 9--

Metals Testing CompanyReceives Turbomeca Etch Approval

Metals Testing Company (MTC) has added another special process approval to its growing list of aerospace Primes. The Prime involved in this case is Turbomeca, and the approval being for etching and examination of a nickel based alloy. Specifically, MTC has received Turbomeca’s approval to perform macro-etching and macrographic examination on rotating parts made of Inconel 718. This most recent approval adds to previous Turbomeca MTC approvals including FPI and macro-etching on Udimet 500 parts. MTC, located in South Windsor, CT (USA) provides NDT laboratory inspection services to various markets ranging from aerospace to automotive industries. Their in-house capabilities include immersion and contact ultrasonics (UT), chemical etch and etch anodizing, Eddy Current (EC), fluorescent penetrant inspection (FPI), and magnetic particle inspection (MPI). With regard to aircraft engine manufacturers, MTC is one of the few approved independent laboratories in the world for providing Blue Etch Anodize (BEA) inspections. MTC also has a broad range of UT C-Scan inspection capabilities. For further information please contact: Randy Plis Metals Testing Company 860-289-8225 mtc62@aol.com www.mtc62.com

--continued from Page 8--

“More Thinking About Lean Transformation”

When we mention this issue to managers in most organizations their first proposal is to re-draw the organization chart to give specific individuals clear authority for each horizontal value stream. But in our experience this often misses the point. The many individuals touching the value stream are located in many different departments and functions for a good reason: This is the simplest way to organize knowledge and careers. Adding another layer of management or re-assigning everyone to a product family team with a heavy-weight manager may do more harm than good to the organization as a whole.

A better approach is for someone to take responsibility for transforming each value stream. This individual needs to create their authority by asking insightful questions and tackling persistent problems to a point where those touching the value stream grant the value-stream leader the authority senior managers usually can’t. (This is the situation of the Chief Engineer at Toyota, who has responsibility for the success and profitability of the product but who has no formal authority over any of the hundreds or thousands of individuals working on its development. The Chief Engineer leads by knowing more, seeing further, and asking better questions than any individual or single department.) Our hypothesis is that with careful selection of responsible value-stream leaders and by experimentation with the best methods for these responsible individuals to employ, the seeming paradox of responsibility without authority can be resolved to the great benefit of the organization.

Our third hypothesis is that the best way to engage people at every level to tackle customer and organizational purpose is to involve everyone in routine, continuous problem solving. People love to solve problems. But they rarely get the chance! Doing this means creating ways for everyone to see the current state of the process they are touching, understand how it serves the customer, and suggest ways to improve it. This includes rapid kaizen, of course. But it’s often more important to tackle standard work at the primary level of value creation, to conduct A3 analysis at the value-stream level, and to engage in strategy deployment at the level of the entire organization.

Our final hypothesis is that most managers have learned to see muda (waste) in the individual steps of their value streams. But they fail to see, much less to tackle, the problems of mura (unevenness) and muri (overburden) that create much of the muda. For example, we routinely see managers with so many out-of-control conditions to work around that they have no time left over for thinking about improvement. They are proud of how hard they work and what they manage to achieve in chaotic conditions. Yet the press of the exceptional -- the thing “gone wrong” -- crowds out the pressing need for true problem solving. As a result few problems ever get solved.

Where does this muri come from? Usually it is created within the organization rather than externally by the customer, as most managers seem to believe. Actions by managers in one part of the organization

cause unevenness (mura) in the activities of managers and employees in other parts of the organization. And this causes muri – the overburden most managers feel most of the time. For example, the waves of orders at the end of the reporting period that overburden production and purchasing are rarely addressing the real problems of the customer. Instead, these waves are created by sales incentives and bonuses set by the sales and marketing departments. It follows that to make real progress in organizational transformation managers need to address all three Ms – muda, mura, and muri – at the same time.

As I said at the outset, these are simply hypotheses. We’ll inform everyone of our findings. But in the meantime I hope you will devise your own hypotheses about the most effective methods for lean transformation and put them to the test. And I hope you will be willing to share your findings with the Lean Community around the world.

Best regards, Jim Womack, Chairman and Founder Lean Enterprise Institute