Mike Martin
The redrawn map of the aerospace world, with the creation of several major new companies, offers great opportunities for supplier companies, says Geoff Smith, chief executive of Dowty Group. He believes that more work will be devolved to suppliers from the major companies, but he cautions that supplier companies will have to be flexible to capitalise on the opportunities.
"If you look at the industry, equipment suppliers will take up more work which may be packaged together in different ways. It¹s beginning to happen already and I would be fairly confident that before the end of this year we will see a lot more evidence of this. "If you look at a company like BAE Systems, they have the capability to supply an entire aircraft carrier. I would expect that a company like Dowty would benefit in that it would be expected to undertake more of the, say, structures work that was previously done in-house."
"Bespoke"
Looking at specific markets, Smith says the company has targeted the "bespoke" cargo conversion market. At Farnborough it is showing off a fully dressed cargo door assembly. "We believe we have an edge in that our Hamble business has a unique capability for doing both the design work and the manufacturing."
The company has been "working hard" with Airbus Industrie on the A3XX project but would also expect to be in the running for work on the Boeing 747X programme. Dowty has been on the acquisition trail recently and Smith says the company "would be very interested" to talk to companies that wanted to merge.
Expertise
However, he says the company is not interested in growing for the sake of size alone. It is primarily interested in opportunities in its existing areas of expertise and is not in the business of hostile takeovers.
At Farnborough 2000, the company will be showing off its structures expertise in areas like hydraulics and actuation, as well as its engine products. Says Smith: "At the last Paris show we sat down and looked at how we present ourselves. We concluded that our engine work was one of the best kept secrets in the business. The result was a display that was very effective in demonstrating our engine work. "We have applied that principle to our structures expertise and so now we think we have a very powerful way of describing the work of the Dowty Aerospace family."
The exhibit (Hall 4-A10) essentially shows a working wing, demonstrating the company¹s capability in slats, flaps, ailerons and spoilers.
Source: Flight Daily News
