Lord Corp. (Chalet A33) is here at the Farnborough show as it starts a major expansion push into Europe. At a pre-show briefing at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London the company unveiled a new “aerospace business growth strategy for Europe”–the main focus being the booming fixed-wing airliner sector, as Lord is already active in the helicopter industry in Europe, specializing in noise, vibration and motion-control technologies.
The company told reporters that its “goal is $2 billion, doubling sales again by 2022,” after it recorded a doubling over the past 10 years, “now approaching $1 billion,” with aerospace playing “a significant role in that.”
A diversified company, Cary, North Carolina-based Lord Corp.’s aerospace division accounts for around 35 percent of total sales. Within aerospace, it has “four strategic markets–rotary wing, civil fixed wing, business aviation and defense.” It already has a European base in Geneva, Switzerland, while its Asia Pacific headquarters is in Hong Kong. Bill Cerami, the president of Lord’s aerospace and defense global industry group, said, “We are a stable, 90-year-old company with a strong balance sheet that shares in the development risk with our partners.” Such partners already include Airbus, Saab, Safran, Finmeccanica, Dassault and Pilatus.
Lord Aerospace director, EMEA, Rachid Bendali, said, “Our value-added is to innovate and share risk to produce the best aircraft possible.” The process of taking its core skillset developed in the helicopter world into the fixed-wing world has already started, said Bendali. For helicopters, an example of its systems is on the AW139 helicopter, where it developed an active-noise-control system for the cabin; meanwhile, on the Boeing 787 it helped to develop systems “to stop noise getting to the cabin.” With the helicopter, Bendali said “the ride is almost jet smooth now.” The aircraft flies 11 to 15 knots faster (which allows the operator, an oil-industry company, “to make more missions a day”) and there is an “unintended consequence” in that “equipment lasts longer as there is less vibration in the cabin.”
Boasting rich aerospace heritage–Lord provided the engine mounts for the Ford Trimotor–makes the company confident that it can find wider applications in the industry, and it sees the Farnborough show as the ideal place to meet potential partners.
Lord has also been on the acquisition trail, for example, acquiring Microstrain in 2012. That company offered “sensors that could make our parts smarter; for example, predicting early failure,” said Bendali. It had “breakthrough technology we couldn’t develop [fast enough] ourselves…The sensors can be placed anywhere and work wirelessly and have their own energy-harvesting systems.” One specific use is “weight on wheel systems,” he added. This year the company also acquired New York-based Stellar Technologies (STI), a specialist in transducers and sensors, which has clients in the oil and gas industry as well as companies such as SpaceX.
Target Lists
Dr. Guy Billoud, Lord’s global director for strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions, told AIN that the company has “several [acquisition] target lists” with the aim being threefold: “to complement our offering; to increase our physical presence in Europe, which is not sufficient; and to help reduce risk in the supply chain.” He said that the industry is gradually seeing more significant tier “one-and-a-half and two” suppliers becoming risk-sharing partners. Lord, Billoud said, is well positioned for this because “we’ve always been involved in designing, certification and production–the full spectrum, and even the aftermarket…” Lord also has an MRO business.
Billoud stressed that Lord is focused on “inorganic growth” as well as organic, and that it is heavily focused on innovation–to the extent that it even seeds those with specific new technologies to offer, “a bit like a VC [venture capitalist].”
In 2009 Lord opened a European technology center in Geneva, which now has 15 engineers. This is backed up by 120 engineers in the U.S. and has led to “a significant improvement in communications” on projects on which Lord is working in Europe. One project it is working on is the attachment system for an open-rotor engine, as part of Europe’s Clean Sky program. “We’re now looking for opportunities to take part in Clean Sky 2,” said Bendali.
Engine Mounts
Lord provided the engine mounts for the Boeing 737 Classic airliner and for the P&W engines on the Boeing 757 and 767, but had not won a competition for airliner engine mounts since the 1970s (it has several contracts with business jet manufacturers, however).
At the show this week the company is revealing the platform that changed its long wait: a commercial platform contract won in 2012 for a hard-mount system. “Design is now at a very advanced stage,” said Marc Papie, manager of aircraft engine systems, at the London briefing. “I hope it’ll be announced at Farnborough,” he added.