Almost exactly a year ago, Rockwell Collins completed its long-running merger with the UTAS division of United Technologies to create one of the most diversified businesses in aerospace. Collins Aerospace – itself an amalgam of a series of acquisitions over the past decade, including B/E, Arinc and Goodrich – emerged as a $23 billion-turnover concern, with 70,000 employees across 300 sites worldwide, and with products spanning landing gear and nacelles to cabin connectivity, avionics, ejection seats and airliner seating.
Almost exactly a year ago, Rockwell Collins completed its long-running merger with the UTAS division of United Technologies to create one of the most diversified businesses in aerospace. Collins Aerospace – itself an amalgam of a series of acquisitions over the past decade, including B/E, Arinc and Goodrich – emerged as a $23 billion-turnover concern, with 70,000 employees across 300 sites worldwide, and with products spanning landing gear and nacelles to cabin connectivity, avionics, ejection seats and airliner seating.
Collins Aerospace is highlighting this array of equipment and competencies at Dubai, with products on display from its six business units: aerostructures, avionics, interiors, mechanical systems, mission systems, and power and controls. They include the latest version of its ProLine Fusion glass cockpit – available on more than 20 business and other aircraft from the Textron Aviation King Air to the Embraer KC-390. Collins will also showcase its cabin information systems, Stage and Venue, as well as several of its mission systems technologies, including those designed to help military pilots navigate in denied airspace.
According to chief executive Kelly Ortberg – who previously filled the same role at Rockwell Collins – the integration of the two businesses is “ahead of plan financially”. He says: “We targeted $500 million in cost synergies, and at Paris [air show in June] increased that target to $600 million, and we continue to find good cost savings.” Those synergies are not just about doing away with duplicated processes, however, but “leveraging the respective strengths in the channels where one legacy company had a stronger presence”.
This can include bundling products from the respective businesses, for instance, says Ortberg, by offering legacy Rockwell Collins Arinc ku-band capabilities for business jets with an interface device from legacy UTAS to “bring to market an integrated connectivity solution”. It can also mean making the most of the “pretty strong” dealer network Rockwell Collins has. “The secret to selling to the aftermarket is knowing when the airplane is coming in for maintenance,” he says. “We have been able to expand the portfolio that our dealers can offer to include legacy UTAS products.”
At Dubai, Collins will also be talking about three areas of longer-term focus for the business – electric power generation, intelligent and autonomous solutions, and connectivity. In April, the company announced plans for an advanced electric systems lab, called The Grid, in Rockford, Illinois, where it will test high-power generators and other equipment for “the next generation of more electric aircraft”. Collins says the $50 million investment in the lab, which will be operational in 2021, is part of a $150 million spend on electric systems over the next three years.
At the time, Ortberg said: “Collins is the innovation leader in electric systems, and The Grid positions us to remain the world leader in the electrification of aircraft for decades to come. In the not-too-distant future, hybrid electric and fully electric aircraft will revolutionise air travel as we know it – opening up new markets like urban air mobility, while re-invigorating others like regional service to under-utilised airports. They will help support a greener planet by reducing carbon emissions, and will help our airline customers by reducing operating costs and fuel consumption.”
Among the platforms The Grid will support will be the United Technologies hybrid-electric flight demonstrator, Project 804. The goal of Project 804, developed by the company’s advanced projects group, is to re-engine and fly a regional turboprop aircraft powered by a two-megawatt hybrid-electric propulsion system on a “highly aggressive timeline”. The advanced projects group includes engineers from both Collins and its sister company Pratt & Whitney. A one-megawatt motor, motor controller and battery system will initially be designed and tested at The Grid.
Collins’ work on intelligent and autonomous solutions includes creating “real-time connectivity in the battlefield in a GPS denied environment” and integrating unmanned platforms into civil airspace. This is a priority for an industry where more than 100 potentially autonomous urban air mobility systems are in development, but allowing them to operate over urban areas will require imaginative thinking from air traffic management technology providers and regulators.
The company’s efforts on connectivity involve combining the expertise of both legacy companies in a push to exploit the potential of big data. “With more demand for airplanes to be connected with broadband, we are coming up with more digital and connectivity solutions,” says Ortberg. “Legacy Rockwell had a good position in onboard equipment, but legacy UTAS had more capability in terms of data management and we are looking at integrating these to help with predictive maintenance, for example.”
Collins’ presence in the Middle East and North Africa includes a factory in Casablanca, Morocco, as well as a partnership with Emirates and others in Dubai “focused on delivering the next era of air travel”. A 40% expansion to its Casablanca plant is due to be complete by 2020. The facility, established in 2012, assembles and tests commercial airliner cockpit and cabin equipment such as sidesticks, throttles and rudder controls. The expansion will support the production of two new programmes for Collins – rudder controls for the Airbus A320neo family and horizontal stabilizer trim actuators for the Boeing 777X.
Dubai’s Aviation X Lab – an “innovation incubator” launched in October 2017 by Dubai’s ruler Sheikh Mohammed Al Maktoum, and a collaboration between Collins, the Dubai airline, GE Aviation and Thales – is designed to identify and support with funding, logistics and mentoring start-ups, academic institutions, and other innovators with the potential to “enhance the air travel experience”. Applications are currently being sought, with a deadline of 21 January.
Ortberg describes the MENA region as “pretty important” for Collins, with 400 employees – a figure that “will continue to grow” – and a substantial market presence both in the commercial and military sectors. In commercial, the biggest opportunities, he says, are in commercial interiors, particularly premium seating. In defence, ejection seats are an area of focus. Collins strategy, he says, is to “invest locally and build local capabilities in line with the policies in the region”.
Although it has only been a year since United Technologies bought Rockwell Collins to create Collins Aerospace, another mega merger is on the cards, with United Technologies and Raytheon soon to become one as Raytheon Technologies, once regulators have approved. The new company is expected to have combined revenues of $74 billion, making it the biggest in the industry behind Boeing and Airbus. It will mean employees of B/E Aerospace, the cabin interiors specialist bought by Rockwell Collins in 2017, will have worked for four different companies in three years.
Ortberg says the merger should not create too much disruption for Collins, which will continue, along with Pratt & Whitney, as one of four strategic business units of the new entity. However, Raytheon and United Technologies – which is divesting its Otis and Carrier businesses ahead of the merger – are not simply coming together to create scale, and Ortberg expects “significant revenue synergies” to be identified, although he says these cannot be worked on until the deal closes.
