Apex grows its aviation business by staying nimble

Apex Engineering International, or AEI, has been growing briskly and adding employees.

As part of the growth, Apex is bringing in work on Cessna’s Citation CJ4 business jet now built overseas.

It will build the flaps and ailerons for the jet.

“It’s a very busy time,” said Rod Holter, vice president and general manager. “Lockheed (Martin) is busy. Everybody is busy.”

To keep up with the work, Apex, located at 1804 W. Second St. North, plans to add 60 employees next year to its staff of about 200.

It added 40 employees over the summer.

To get ready for the new CJ4 work, company officials plan to go before the Wichita City Council next month to ask for incentives.

The cost of building the tooling for the parts alone totaled more than a million dollars, Holter said.

“For a small company, that’s a large investment,” he said.

The work will add 15 jobs over the next five years.

Apex builds metal parts, assemblies and integrated components for the aerospace industry in Wichita. It builds tooling and does forming, welding, machining, chemical processing and assembly in 200,000 square feet of space in Wichita.

A subsidiary in Ada, Okla., does composite and metal work.

The factory has deep roots in Wichita’s aviation history.

It’s the site where Clyde Cessna founded Cessna Aircraft Co. in 1927, said Walt House, historian for the Kansas Aviation Museum. To the north was an airfield. In 1929, Cessna moved the factory to southeast Wichita on Pawnee Street.

Apex was started in Wichita during the 1950s. In 2003, the assets were sold to a private investor who ran the company until 2011, when it sold to Gridiron Capital, a private equity firm.

Apex became a division of HM Dunn Aerospace, also owned by Gridiron, when the two companies merged together early this year.

In Wichita, 60 percent of Apex’s work is on military projects. The remainder is split between general aviation and commercial aviation.

“The real growth is in commercial aviation,” Holter said.

One of the company’s challenges is managing all the growth.

Last year, revenue was flat with the year before. It’s on track to be up 40 percent this year. Next year, the company expects another big revenue increase.

Its biggest customer is Lockheed Martin, but the company also does work for Boeing, HondaJet, Spirit AeroSystems, Gulfstream, Bombardier Learjet and others.

In August, Apex received an award from Spirit, which recognized it as a “developmental and growth” supplier. Apex is on track to gain significant work from Spirit, Holter said.

While the company does not have work on the Boeing 737, it is bidding and winning work on the 737 MAX, Boeing’s updated 737, from Spirit.

Eventually, he expects Spirit to be one of its biggest customers.

Apex’s single biggest contract, however, is building escape hatches for the B-52.

The government is retrofitting the hatches on 75 airplanes. Each airplane has six, Holter said.

On a recent day, workers were forming frames for the hatches by using a drop hammer to form the shape, then they finish them by hand.

It’s a skill.

“This is a developed art,” Holter said. “They know how much pressure and where to place the rubber pads on the part.”

One of Apex’s niches is using old designs to bring parts into current production, he said.

For example, employees must use old drawings done by hand on mylar sheets to build the B-52 hatches. Today’s designs are digitally done in three dimensions.

One challenge for Apex is doing work for so many different customers.

“If you’re at a large OEM (original equipment manufacturer), and you’re making parts for yourself, you build only to your specifications,” Holter said. “A shop like ours, we have to be versed in every one of their specifications. When we move from making a part for a CJ4 to a B-52, we have to be flexible. You have to be nimble.”

Apex has the capacity to take on a lot of additional work.

“It takes a great team,” Holter said. “You have to have good people. ... We’re all here for the same reason: to grow the business. We work hard every day.”

This story was originally published November 26, 2014 at 12:07 PM with the headline "Apex grows its aviation business by staying nimble."