Systems provider Parker Aerospace and local partner SIA Engineering have launched ACE Services, a venture to provide maintenance, repair, overhaul and spares for the latest generation of aircraft hydraulic systems.
Singapore Economic Development Board chairman Teo Ming Kian will today open the company’s new state-of-the-art facility at Loyang Aerospace Park near the airport.
Built at a cost of S$19 million ($11.7 million), the 3,000m2 (33,000ft2) facility is equipped to service hydraulic pumps, flight-control actuators, servo-control valves and thrust-reverser actuators. The partners describe it as the first non-OEM hydraulic service centre in the world to be capable of handling the hydraulic pressures of up to 345bar (5,000lb/in2) that characterise the systems fitted to next-generation airliners such as the Airbus A380 and Boeing 787.
“As our business grew in this region we reached a point where it made sense to repair and overhaul our systems here rather than shipping them all the way back to the USA,” says ACE Services general manager Greg Diem. “We partnered with SIA because they enjoy such a high reputation for what they do in this part of the world.”
The ACE Services facility is currently set up with six work cells to handle over 250 separate Parker Aerospace components and subsystems. “We expect that to more than double over the next five years as we take on work relating to the high-volume aircraft types in the region – the 777, 737NG, A320 – as well as the next-generation types such as the 787 and A380,” says Diem. “We have the space to add two more cells, and we expect to hire significantly more people before the end of this year.”
ACE Services is the first facility of its kind for Parker. “But there’s a good chance that we will set up others, very possibly starting in China,” says Diem.
Source: Flight Daily News
