Scotland plant gave Spirit new base, new customer

PRESTWICK, Scotland — Spirit AeroSystems' plant in the coastal town of Prestwick is much different today than it was when Spirit acquired it in 2006.

Since then, Spirit has made significant investments in technology, won new work and increased the plant's expertise.

"There's been a radical change at the site in the last two years," said Scott McLarty, Spirit Europe operations and human relations director.

One of the biggest has been a change to automation.

"Prior to Spirit, we were very much semi-automatic — guys with big drills," said Spirit Europe vice president and managing director Neil McManus.

Before the sale, it was clear that the facility wasn't part of the core business of its owner, BAE Systems.

"We needed a technology partner, and we also wanted somebody who wanted us," McManus said.

For Spirit, the acquisition gave it both a European base and a new customer — Airbus, said Spirit CEO Jeff Turner.

That relationship and Spirit's knowledge of Airbus has brought Spirit new work, including the Airbus A350 program.

Seventy-five percent of Prestwick's work is for Airbus. Eighty percent of the Airbus work is for the A320 family of single-aisle jetliners.

It also performs work for Boeing's 777 and 767 programs.

Spirit is one of the area's major employers with 900 employees in Prestwick and 100 at a site in Preston, England, where workers do material purchasing, engineering and support functions.

Another 400 work at Spirit's Malaysia facility building parts delivered to Prestwick.

Prestwick's roots

The town of Prestwick is Scotland's oldest baronial burgh, dating back more than 1,000 years. It's also the birthplace of the Open. The first British Golf Open Championship was held there in 1860.

The Prestwick facility has an aviation history as rich as the lush, rolling pastures hugging the sea nearby.

The site began in 1936 with the opening of the Scottish Aviation Elementary Flying Training School. The original building still exists.

As Scottish Aviation, it once produced entire airplanes — Bulldog trainers and Jetstream commuters.

Later, it became a division of BAE Systems and Spirit's first acquisition.

Technology

One of Spirit Europe's biggest undertakings has been cutting costs and driving efficiency.

It's incorporating a Spirit initiative called Spirit Exact in which parts and assemblies are highly engineered and easier to assemble.

Cost-cutting also came through a variety of other measures.

It moved some composite assembly work to Spirit's site in Malaysia and some metallic assembly work to India, which also gives Spirit a major presence there, McManus said. It also helps Airbus get single-aisle planes into India.

Prestwick also added robot technology. One robot is at work riveting A320 assemblies, picking up rivets in a bin and riveting sections behind a fenced area in a larger facility.

A second robot is being set up to take on A350 work.

The robot is a larger version of a similar robot at Spirit's Tulsa plant. Tulsa employees came to Prestwick to help with installation and training.

The robots take the role of more than 50 mechanics, McManus said, although he said jobs haven't been cut because of them.

The savings are paying off. On average, what the site charges customers today is about half of what it charged 10 years ago, McManus said.

"The customer has to sell airplanes; therefore the need for innovation," McManus said.

The savings helped Spirit Europe receive Airbus contracts to design and build the wing leading edge of its all-new A350XWB (extra wide body) aircraft. Airbus also extended its contract for A320 work as part of the deal.

Prestwick will build about half of the A350 composite leading edge; Spirit's Malaysia plant will produce composite subassemblies and its Kinston, N.C., plant will build the composite front spar.

The company would not have won A350 work without Spirit Europe's knowledge and relationship with Airbus, McManus said.

The site has had a long history with Airbus. In 2006, BAE sold its 20 percent share in Airbus to the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., Airbus' parent company.

As the operator of the Prestwick site, BAE didn't want to invest in the plant.

"You have to invest before the money comes back," McManus said. "(Spirit) has the strength to do that. (And it has) the technical expertise.

"We've moved into areas we would have never moved into before," he said.

For example, it opened a joint maintenance, repair and overhaul facility for Boeing aircraft thrust reversers.

"We would have never done that under our previous guys," McManus said.

Spirit Europe didn't cut jobs in the economic downturn. The biggest impact was felt in work it does on what Hawker Beechcraft now calls the Hawker 900 business jet.

"The Hawker program fell through the floor," McLarty said.

Spirit Europe went from employing 100 people on the program to 14. Rather than cut jobs, it worked with the union to absorb the workers in other areas, McLarty said.

The expertise is too valuable to lose. Mechanics go through a four-year apprenticeship to gain experience in all functions of an aircraft.

"It would be hard to get them back," McLarty said.

Now, the company is exiting the Hawker work, which is moving to Hawker's factory in Mexico.

But the facility is preparing for increased production for Airbus and Boeing airliners.

Each planemaker is experiencing a surge in demand, McManus said. And both are increasing production rates to record levels.

"We've got this horrible, horrible problem of too much work," McManus joked.

This story was originally published July 31, 2011 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Scotland plant gave Spirit new base, new customer."