Global demand for new commercial aircraft is in the middle stages of a projected long-term boom. Providing a broad range of critical components and services for modern aircraft, Curtiss-Wright is a key partner to the major original equipment manufacturers driving this growth, including Boeing and Airbus. Our products, found from the nose to the tail of the aircraft, include today’s most advanced, highly reliable control position sensors, market leading hot air valves used on advanced engine propulsion systems, and a gamut of other proprietary products and services. Our broad portfolio is an important competitive advantage that enables our customers to single-source multiple components from a trusted supplier.
Our outlook for commercial aerospace is strong, not only because we have significant content on established core platforms, but also because we’ve captured important contracts on virtually every new major program with substantial backlogs, including the 787, A350, A320neo, 737 MAX, CFM LEAP-X and the Pratt & Whitney PurePower engine. Later in the decade, we anticipate supporting the 777X and other developing programs. In fact, aircraft manufacturers are forecasting 20-year deliveries in excess of 30,000 aircraft with a market value of over $4.5 trillion. Given our strong track record and proven OEM partnerships, it’s an extraordinary market opportunity for Curtiss-Wright.
Our stature in the commercial aerospace market reflects our ongoing commitment to provide superior value to customers through innovation, best-in-class technology and excellent support. The aircraft manufacturers expect nothing less. Their demands for proven partnerships are driving consolidation in our industry that, together with sharply higher orders for new aircraft, presents an excellent opportunity for Curtiss-Wright. To fully exploit this market shift, we are leveraging our key accounts strategy by generating a maximum return on our resources through our deep customer relationships and exceptional knowledge of our customer needs. This should provide Curtiss-Wright with increased opportunities and a strong competitive position.
We are also investing in new product development to help our aerospace customers meet their requirements for lower fuel burn, increased load factors and shortened downtimes.
We provide industrial OEMs and their suppliers with a broad spectrum of technically advanced processing solutions for mission critical components that extend the life and increase the performance of important systems. At Curtiss-Wright’s Surface Technologies division, we’re meeting those needs at 74 sites worldwide by supplying proven capabilities together with superior service and rapid turn-around time.
Customers have come to rely on Curtiss-Wright to extend equipment life cycles. They know our value-added surface technology applications are key to improving reliability and longevity by strengthening and protecting critical components. Recognized for many decades for our superior shot peening and shot peen forming technologies, we also are the undisputed market leader in laser peening, a computer-controlled process for precision strengthening of such parts as turbine blades and airplane wings. Through our engineered coatings group, we also apply a broad variety of high performance coatings that include corrosion resistant coatings for the aerospace and automotive industries, lubricity coatings for aerospace structural fasteners, high temperature insulating coatings for turbine engines, and wear resistant and thermal spray coatings for the oil and gas and power generation markets. Additional facilities provide mechanical, chemical and metallurgical testing services to ensure the design and manufacturing integrity of critical metal, ceramic and composite components.
We continuously develop opportunities to build on and scale out our existing technology base to capture new business and expand our customer set by insertion of improved processing techniques and technologies. A recent example of this was the leveraging of internally developed proprietary aircraft wing forming software to capture a long term contract for forming the wings of a next generation business jet aircraft.
Established customers appreciate that our technologies provide a range of value, primarily ensuring product integrity by protecting against aggressive environments encountered in service. Building on this foundation, we are expanding overseas by leveraging the proven capabilities and customer relationships of our international facility network to continually enhance our market position.
In support of these initiatives, we are acquiring new hightechnology and complementary services businesses at the right price and with the right strategic fit to penetrate new markets. Our recent acquisition of Component Coating and Repair Services Limited (CCRS) and its ultra-smooth and corrosion resistant coatings for aerospace turbine engines is a direct example of this market expansion. We can now offer customers a more bundled approach that packages these new leading edge technologies with those of our existing thermal spray and shot peening services.
Over the past few years, we have actively increased the type and level of unique engineered services technologies that we can offer our customers, both organically and through acquisitions. We have increased the number and sophistication of robots utilized in shot peening and engineered coatings, and advanced our proprietary laser peening to where we can now take a complete mobile laser system to a customer’s facility. A recent successful example of this was the insertion of a laser peening “shop-in-shop” production cell inside of Rolls-Royce’s wide chord fan blade manufacturing facility in Singapore, which decreased overall turn times and eliminated shipping costs.
Electro chemical finish grinding of a turbine engine honeycomb seal by CCRS.
From industrial vehicles to intercity transportation, from John Deere tractors to sophisticated wheelchairs, Curtiss-Wright is a recognized leader in providing components, sub-systems and sensors that enable customer specific solutions for medium and heavy duty on-highway and off-highway vehicles, as well as specialty vehicles used around the world.
Technology is changing the paradigm for commercial and specialty vehicles, just as it has for the general auto industry. Farmers, consumers and professional drivers demand leading edge capabilities to enhance their productivity and help ensure their safety. To meet this need, leading vehicle manufacturers are partnering with Curtiss-Wright and other proven suppliers. Rising fuel costs coupled with the need for reduced emissions are driving the need for advanced power management and electronics to efficiently operate these complex systems.
Our longer term goal is for our OEM partners to cover their vehicles with Curtiss-Wright capabilities as they launch new state-of-the-art products for their customers.
We serve three primary markets within the commercial and specialty vehicle industries, specializing in highly-engineered, safety critical products: on-highway, where we focus on medium and heavy duty trucks (including Class 8); offhighway, where our products are found on a multitude of vehicles, from tractors to utility vehicles; and electric vehicles, including state-of-the-art wheelchairs and hybrid buses.
The common link across our markets is technology that makes each of these vehicles more productive, safer and responsive by leveraging Curtiss-Wright’s proven expertise providing components and sub-systems which are enabled by distinctive technologies.
One example where we’re changing the paradigm is the modern crop sprayer. Propelled by the rapid shift to precision farming, farm equipment manufacturers are installing sensors throughout crop sprayers to provide precision feedback to spray booms, reducing overlap and gaps as fertilizer and other material is evenly distributed. Our sensors are also linked to the farmer’s GPS to ensure complete efficient coverage of the field, helping maximize crop yield and reducing waste.
Other vehicle manufacturers are similarly installing our sensors and instruments to enhance productivity and safety, including on scissor lifts and cranes. In other markets, we are the industry leader for electronic throttle controls to many of the leading medium and heavy duty truck manufacturers, including Paccar, Navistar and Volvo, and the principal provider of traction inverters to hybrid bus manufacturers in North America.
Through product innovation and superior customer partnering, we are maintaining our industry leadership in medium and heavy duty on-highway and off-highway vehicles, as well as specialty vehicles, while lowering the cost of manufacturing and developing ways to strengthen our competitive advantage.
Our significant opportunities for growth in industrial markets come from the acquisitions completed over the past two years, which provided Curtiss-Wright new avenues to gain market share. Our acquisition of Arens Controls exemplifies our growth in the industrial market, as it further strengthened and grew our industrial controls business and provided increased penetration within the commercial and off-road vehicle markets. As a result, we are now a premier provider of electronic throttle controls and electronic shifters to the leading medium and heavy duty truck OEMs.
Longer term, we look for significant new product opportunities to emerge as we evolve from marketing sensors, throttle controls, rugged joysticks and integrated electronics to providing a multitude of sophisticated system offerings tied to a common vehicle architecture for this $3 billion market.
Through our ‘Covering the Vehicle’ strategy, Curtiss-Wright provides complex system solutions for commercial, off-road and specialty vehicles.
