Able

Able Aerospace provides customers with numerous options for maintaining their aircraft.  They are the MRO industry leader in quality, lead time, value, and service. Able offers more than 10,000 FAA approved, out of scope and proprietary repairs for fixed-wing and rotor-wing fleets.

Able’s team of seasoned engineers introduces a multitude of repair, overhaul, and approved FAA replacement parts solutions each month, and their repair experts provide full-circle maintenance service through new state-of-the-art operations and facilities.

Enna was recruited to eliminate defects while maximizing the performance of Able’s multi-skilled workforce.

Challenge

Needed zero internal defect rate, prompt decision making, greater capacity, and faster turnaround times

Needed to match assessment of repair to qualified employees and available machine centers

Owner wanted to continue to grow and be the most admired company in the MRO industry

Solution

We introduced and developed visual management systems to identify bottleneck processes and built these visual management systems into every project along with respective signal boards. This allowed us to implement higher value flow of information and materials, process changes, and machine changeover time reductions. In this respect, we overhauled the entire production, engineering, and sales systems at Able.

This model with which we have guided Able’s efforts has proven them to be more than willing to undertake difficult tasks in order to improve themselves as well as their organization. They were able to identify abnormalities and create information systems to allocate the right resources to complete projects in the most timely manner.

Finally, we developed matrices to track the progress of each employee and a train-the-trainer program to champion personal growth and maintenance of each individual’s skills.  This growth in skills translated directly to better business metrics.

Results

The leadership of the senior executive teams was strengthened in parallel to the leadership of the frontline teams.  Rework was massively decreased and Able is now the undeniable leader for their industry.  Rework is now at zero in just 6 months with Enna’s IP.

Stagnation of decisions in production, engineering, and inspection was reduced by 40%.  Project lead-time has been reduced by 30% even with increasing mix and complexity.

Productivity increased despite a natural decrease in employment, and profitability soared. There was no need to hire additional employees at this point.

The engineering skills and expertise from the senior staff has now been passed on to the younger engineers, reducing the cost from rehiring new engineers by 25%.

Most remarkably, Able’s profit per employee ended up going from $512 per employee per month to $3,475 per employee per month. Overall, the value of the organization increased by multiples before it was sold at this upgraded value to the Textron company.  The owner had a vision to create growth and profitability. Our strategy helped make this vision a reality.

Make A Difference With Enna

Schedule a Call