Emergent Operations Transform the Manufacturing Cycle
While Curtiss‑Wright’s Flight Systems business features the most direct link to the original business founded by Glenn Curtiss and the Wright brothers, our strategic outlook regarding this area of technology is emblematic of the culture of opportunistic adaptation that accounts for our long history of success. Curtiss‑Wright continues its legacy of transforming aerospace with new, proprietary industry-leading processes and technologies that continually demonstrate to aircraft original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) our high standards of performance, innovation, and reliability.
Our most recent example of these qualities and values has grown out of our 60-year relationship with Boeing and our status as a premier supplier partner of critical aerospace applications. Our unique start-up “Emergent Operations” business located in North Carolina provides valuable assistance to Boeing’s Commercial Airplane production system through a strategic engagement with the OEM’s 787 Aerospace Production Campus in Charleston, South Carolina.
We invested in capital improvements for cutting-edge infrastructure and equipment to transform our Shelby, North Carolina manufacturing facility into a true Center of Excellence for Curtiss‑Wright. Our innovations in value stream manufacturing are driving efficiencies through a higher level of “lean” production principles in a focused factory setting. Since its inception, this transforming partnership has shortened manufacturing cycle times for critical, complex, five-axis machined components from months and weeks to just days. Our Emergent Operations activity provides 24/7 support to Boeing with just-in-time solutions that keep an uninterrupted flow of highly engineered aerospace components moving in the production line today and in the future.
The value of our Emergent Operations business resides in the ability to rapidly provide customized, high-precision solutions to the unique challenges that can emerge during the complex, large-scale project of assembling an airplane. While several airplanes are moving through the assembly process at once, it is not uncommon to encounter situations where critical parts must be re-manufactured to precise dimensional tolerances, and the steps involved may include several different suppliers. Given the nature of just-in-time supply systems, such additional work could cause a halt to one or more production processes until the new parts arrived, which sometimes can take several weeks or even months.
Accordingly, Curtiss‑Wright’s Emergent Operations business is meeting this critical need for the most technologically advanced commercial airplane delivered to date, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Inside our Shelby facility, we created a more advanced manufacturing resource with direct access to complementary technologies, such as surface treatment processes capable of producing some of Boeing’s most challenging part designs in only a matter of days. Through this culture and drive for continued innovation in manufacturing, as seen in our Emergent Operations business, we continue to win a significant share of the aircraft OEM market.