MD Helicopters (Booth 9554) is on track to deliver approximately 24 helicopters this year, closely matching its 2021 performance. The estimate includes a memorandum of understanding the OEM recently signed with Texas dealer Trinity Aviation to take 15 helicopters over the next five years.
The Mesa, Arizona OEM has spent the better part of the last two years focused on improving product support and quality, investing $24 million for a larger parts inventory, bettering its forecasting abilities, and applying the automotive industry process of Kaizen, or continuous improvement.
These results have paid off, according to CEO Alan Carr, who joined MD in 2020. The past-due backlog was reduced by 37 percent and fill rates improved from the mid-80 percent range to 92 percent. “Customer satisfaction has gone up,” Carr said. “Without good customer service, it is hard to sell your next helicopter. People speak. They want references. If people have AOGs, they are not going to be a good reference. Taking care of our past takes care of our future as far as new sales.”
Under Carr’s leadership, managers were empowered to be more entrepreneurial and a customer “SWAT” team was set up to improve coordination between the supply team, operations, and programs “to get to the source of the problem as to where customer service was falling down,” he said. Product modernization programs for the MD902 twin and MD600 single were shelved in favor of concentrating on its MD500-series singles, which Carr calls “our bread and butter.”
“It has almost a cult-following and loyalty to it,” Carr said of the 500 series. “You get up in it and you know what this is—the Harley-Davidson of the sky.”
The Taliban takeover of Afghanistan ended MD’s large and lucrative “indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity” (IDIQ) U.S. military contract there, but Carr said MD managed to get all of its personnel safely out of the country before the American withdrawal. And MD has still delivered militarized helicopters via IDIQ to other countries, including Lebanon and Kenya, as well as making additional foreign military sales outside the IDIQ to forces such as Malaysia, where it recently delivered six helicopters. Altogether, even after Afghanistan, military sales account for 50 percent of MD deliveries.
Concurrently, MD is putting more energy into the civil market where it has logged recent sales to a variety of police, utility, and private operators. It is selling more $1.2 million 530E to 530F model conversion packages and the company is continuing to make product improvements to new production helicopters, including a “slimline” glass panel avionics package that provides better forward visibility. A new, base 530E is priced around $2.7 million.
MD’s employee headcount is above 250 and the company is hiring. “The company looks a lot different than it did two years ago,” Carr said.