Every time one of his products explodes, United Aerospace's managing director Gareth Burks is happy. His Pembroke-based company makes two 12kg (26lb) target drones every day for Meggitt, which supplies them to the UK and other militaries to blast apart.
The composite structures manufacturer is one of a number of small and medium-sized enterprises in the industrial belt of south Wales that have survived everything thrown at the region by specialising in quality, niche products. Although Welsh SMEs have been hit by the slump in civil aerospace as elsewhere, with many reporting cashflow tight, there have so far been no casualties in the sector, says Mark Norris, head of aerospace at the Welsh Assembly Government.
On 7 April, the region's SMEs have a chance to promote themselves to the OEMs at the Cardiff Aerolink business networking event, backed by the assembly government. The message to equally cash-strapped OEMs will be that home-grown SMEs are closer to the customer and have the expertise to deliver upscale solutions that more commodity-oriented competitors overseas do not.
Military sales have helped United Aerospace ride out a decline in demand for its other main product lines, composite frames for premium airliner seats and other interiors structures. About 35% of its business comes from non-aerospace, ranging from wind turbines to large satellite dishes. Diversification has been the result of a hard lesson. "We just survived 9/11 and we wouldn't again put the business at risk from one customer or sector," says Burks.
United Aerospace began as an offshoot of a Formula 1 supplier in Surrey which opened premises in Pembroke in 1999 manufacturing aircraft seating. It was bought out by management five years later. Turnover has grown from £1 million ($1.42 million) to £3.2 million last year, and there are 80 employees.
Although the company faces competition from China, the Czech Republic and South Africa, Burks says companies there seek volume deals with lower margins: "We want to go up the supply chain and position ourselves as a niche supplier. They aren't interested in finishing, for instance."
TWI in Port Talbot is also part of the growing composite structures sector, although in a different field. A branch of the Welding Institute - an industry-funded, non-profit research organisation established in the Second World War and based in Cambridge - the centre devises methods of non-destructive testing (NDT) manufactured structures, providing the testing system for the manufacturer.
Installed in the former research department of a steel works in 2003 with Welsh assembly government help, aerospace accounts for 60% of its business. Although it develops NDT testing methods for all types of structures, composites are the biggest challenge. "Critical structures have been made out of metal for thousands of years and we've learned how they perform and fail," says regional manager Philip Wallace. "For composites, you have effectively no data because the technology is so new, so we have to build massive safety margins. Because they use sandwich-type structures, one layer may be completely different to the one underneath, so, unlike metal, you may need two or three techniques to find the range of possible defects you are looking for."
The centre has an armoury of equipment offering, among others, thermography, laser shearography, ultrasonics and radiography testing of the tiniest micro structures to giant components such as the Airbus A380 wingbox. It employs just 14 people, but eight are PhD or MSc scientists and the rest experienced industrial engineers.
At Bridgend, Spectrum Technologies is another SME offering a highly specialist product, in its case ultra-violet laser machines that mark the wiring that goes into modern aircraft.
With Boeing Commercial Airplanes, Airbus wiring supplier Labinal, Lockheed Martin, Sikorsky and the US military among its customers, the company - bought by management from the then British Aerospace in 1994 - has been a prolific exporter, benefiting from the ramp-up in output at Toulouse and Seattle in the past few years. Revenues for the last financial year topped £8 million ($11.7 million).
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The latest downturn, however, presents a challenge, although Spectrum has been there before. "We quardrupled in size between 1994 and 2001, but the lights went out after 9/11," says chairman and managing director Peter Dickinson. The company had to downsize drastically, although launching a new "fourth-generation" product in 2004 helped it rebuild.
Its machines are not the cheapest, compared with technology from places like China, but "what we sell is speed and productivity", says Dickinson. Automation cuts the number of people needed in the wiring identification process. Ensuring that wiring is not damaged by the marking process is vital (the traditional method was "hot stamping"). "People still treat wire as fit and forget, but if you don't get the wiring right in the first place you're in trouble," says Dickinson. "The wiring and the marking on it must last the life of the aircraft."
Source: Flight International
