Mario Lobato Faria, VP industrial operations, talks about MRO and aerostructures opportunities for aircraft such as the C-130 and Embraer ERJ, as well as customer requests. Edited for length and clarity.

OGMA offers commercial, military and business aviation MRO services. What is the split between them, and are you happy with the mix?

LOBATO: OGMA was born within the military and that represents roughly 50% of the maintenance side, because we do not split the aerostructure and aviation service businesses. We have roughly 30% engines maintenance, and then you're basically splitting the last 20% between civil aviation and components maintenance. Business aviation is about half of civil aviation. "When you develop a long-term relationship, you understand the customer better. I see that as an opportunity."

What trends are you seeing in the market? What are customers asking for?

LOBATO: At this stage, price is paramount. We are facing, of course, some difficulties, especially on the commercial side, because of the euro-dollar exchange rate. The other aspects, TAT and quality, are still the same. The other thing I see is a kind of domino effect. Some of our customers were using us to free some of their capacity and also to do work for other customers. Because our customers have lost some of their business, they are retracting, and so we also are losing some of our business. I think it will come back, to be honest.

Our aim right now is to be very, very strong and to be recognized as the number one MRO for the Embraer ERJ products. We already are very strong on the 145 and on the Legacy, but we really want to make a difference in the market.

On Airbus aircraft, we have some good experiences, but the euro-dollar price is killing us, as is the domino effect that I just explained. Sometimes we have lower prices in absolute figures than some of our competitors, but they deal in dollars and we deal in euros. We are having trouble penetrating that market because the competition is harder, and I think that we haven't yet gained a name in the Airbus A320 market.

For us, the trend is to go more and more efficient, more lean, which is something that nowadays is in everybody's mouth, but we are really doing a lot in that area. We have had a Japanese consultancy working with us since January. It's a corporate program, so we are really taking it very seriously. It's part of everyone's action program. We call it E+--excellency, efficiency, entrepreneurship--and it's paying back.

We started with Kaizen events and continuous improvement cells. Almost every month, we have four to six Kaizen events. The continuous improvement cells will involve 100% of my employees.

How are you going to grow your ERJ business, and what advantages do you get from being partly owned by Embraer?