MANUFACTURING “ By having extra machining capability we could reorient some of our flowlines to create permanent setups ”
— Timothy Grein President and CEO , Walbar Engine Components
avoiding distractions outside of your core competencies ,” asserts Mr . Grein . “ We quickly highlighted a few groups of parts that were either priced incorrectly or deemed to be not our core competency and we engaged our customers to make some changes . The customers could see our quality and delivery improvements and they started to work with us to help us get out of those loss- making parts .” While it was a long road , by the end of 2018 , Walbar will have exited all of these , with the full co- operation of the OEMs .
The transition away from UTAS was abrupt and a complete surprise to the entire workforce . On the first morning of the new ownership , his presentation to the workforce set the stage for the level of employee engagement that had been achieved . “ It seemed like the Senior Management team and employees were not communicated how the business was doing . We started by making a commitment on three things : firstly that our people come first and that we would not implement any change that would compromise employee health , safety or happiness ; secondly that Quality was of paramount concern and that every employee needed to recognize that our products are critical to the safe operation of airplanes ; and thirdly that we all
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