Capabilities of Turbine Overhaul Services Revolve Around Quality

An overarching commitment to quality processes, borrowed from its parent company Pratt & Whitney, has placed Singapore's Turbine Overhaul Services (TOS) at the top of the list when engine OEMs and airlines look to repair their rotating blades and non-rotating vanes.

"We follow the UTC (United Technologies Corp.) quality system for everything," said TOS general manager Chan Kwai Wan. "For example, every employee wears safety goggles, and (repaired) blades always go back to the same customer."

Though the airfoil repair company has been around since the 1980s-formed by TRW in 1982, and then sold to the joint venture of Pratt & Whitney (51%) and Singapore Technologies Aerospace (49%) in 1986-it has only been in the last few years that Pratt's commitment to Six Sigma and other quality measures has begun to pay off in revenues.

With 580 employees, TOS turned out about one-half million airfoils in 2001 for an A-list of airlines and OEMs around the world: United, Delta, Northwest, Lufthansa, Pratt, MTU, Volvo Fiat Avio and others. TOS specializes in airfoils from Pratt's JT8D, PW4000, JT9D and PW2000, plus CFM56.

The reason for its success, says Chan without any trace of humility: "operational excellence."

"Probably we are one of the industrial leaders in reliability, quality and turntime," he said. "We are able to win work, and customers are sending us more and more."

The company's on-time delivery and turntime figures bear that out and have improved dramatically since 1997-98. On-time delivery was down at 71% in 1997 and 79% in 1998. Quality initiatives paid off in 1999 when on-time delivery jumped to 88%. They stayed high in 2000 at 89%, and were at 88% through much of 2001.

Similar gains have been seen in turnaround time, which has marched downward from 31 days in 1997 and 26 days in 1998, to 22 days in 1999, and 21 days in 2000 and through the 2001.

TOS's dramatic improvements have not gone unnoticed by Pratt. In 2000, TOS attained silver status in P&W's Manufacturing ACE (Achieving Competitive Excellence) program-becoming the first non-U.S. Pratt facility to attain that level of quality.

For TOS, that recognition has meant more than just another trophy in the reception area. Pratt has shared some of its most advanced technologies-some proprietary-with TOS. These include electron beam physical vapor deposition, cathodic arc coating, and the "Turbotip" cubic boron nitrite blade tipping technology.

Full Turbotip capability was completed in September 2001, which was also the same month that TOS qualified the first PW4000 blade with electron beam physical vapor deposition. Cathodic arc coating technology was qualified in June 2001.

"This is the only place outside Pratt where these (technologies) are available," said Chan. "That is how much they value this shop here. They are willing to invest in Singapore."

By Barry Rosenberg