“The reports of our demise are greatly exaggerated. Quite the contrary, we’re here at EBACE [Booth No. 439] and we’re thriving,” Jack Lawless, president of Associated Air Center (AAC), told AIN. While the Boeing Business Jet (BBJ) and Airbus Corporate Jet (ACJ) maintenance, modification and completions center has faced challenges during the past few years, Lawless said extensive process improvements and efforts by employees have yielded better throughput, and on-time and on-budget deliveries.
According to Lawless, some of the improvements include a reengineering of the beginning-to-end completions process to ensure AAC quality control from concept through redelivery. “We’ve also completed a comprehensive improvement project in the finish shop that upgraded all of our processes, practices and controls, and incorporated the highest quality chemistry available to the industry. We are now seeing superb finishes while using less material and resulting in lighter weight interiors,” he said.
On the supply-chain side, the company revamped its practices and procedures and instituted methods for identifying material requirements with a tracking process to ensure it can maintain production schedules. AAC also initiated a systematic approach to identifying opportunities to reduce interior weight while maintaining structural requirements and aesthetic standards. “One upcoming initiative will be to implement an enhanced quality management system with the goal of becoming ISO certified,” he said. He expects that certification by the middle of next year.
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