Story ID: 300Innotech
Innotech Launches Expanded Service Offerings
By: James Wynbrandt
Caption: The Montreal company is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year.
Word Count: 962
Innotech Aviation, the Montreal-based completion center and MRO, is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, and marking the occasion with expanded service offerings the company is highlighting here in Las Vegas. Known for its green completions and tip-to-tail refurbishments, henceforth the company will put more emphasis on offering its services a la carte to OEMs and operators alike, a “soup to nuts” menu of capabilities, as Rob Brooks, v-p and general manager, put it. “We want to get the message out that you don’t have to show up with an airplane” needing major work. “We’ll build you a set of cabinets or you can send your old cabinets in for refreshment. We’ll build you a set of seats, or we can send an engineering team to manage an installation,” Brooks said by way of example.

Innotech (Booth C7836) previously didn’t encouraged the industry “to look at us as a back shop,” Brooks said, but now wants “to brand our cabinet shop, our upholstery and interior design capabilities as resources that a Gore [GDC Technics] or Airbus could outsource to us for a complete cabin solution, or just monuments, upholstery work or a shower installation.”

Innotech, a division of IMP Group, is best known today for its work on Bombardier platforms. Both companies are headquartered at Dorval, and Innotech has performed completions on more than 40 Globals and also paints many of Bombardier’s green airframes at its paint facility. But Brooks pointed out the company has wide experience with Dassault, Gulfstream, Hawker Beechcraft and Cessna Citation airframes.

Innotech has 200,000 sq ft of hangar and back shop space, and its staff of some 550 includes more than100 woodcrafters, 80 upholsterers and 40 engineers. Tony Rawlinson, director of sales, noted that when particularly challenging projects arise, Innotech is often the go-to choice. He cited recent repairs on a new Hong Kong-based Global 6000 that received substantial hail damage, and a Maldives-based Global damaged by a collision with a fuel truck. Both owners chose to ferry their aircraft (in the latter case at an altitude limited to 10,000 feet) to Innotech for the work.

As the above examples hint, Innotech has a large international clientele, representing 70 percent of its business, Rawlinson said, and the company has a UK office (at Stanstead Airport) and agreements with entities in Asia and the Middle East to facilitate customer contact. But rather than set up satellite MRO branches overseas, Innotech prefers to “take advantage of the facilities and staff in-house,” Brooks said. This ensures projects are managed and performed optimally, and also can save operators money as aircraft can be returned to service more quickly. In the case of repairs to a Part 135 aircraft, for example, “The time not available for charter upcharge can be quite significant,” Brooks said.

Innotech’s global perspective is one reason behind the company’s emphasis on touting the breadth of its service offerings and expanding its client base. Today’s customers are more cost sensitive, Rawlinson said. Rather than complete overhauls, increasingly customers say, “’Refresh my wood and dye the seats,’ or ‘Put in new carpet and rebuff the wood.’” Added Brooks, “We know that we’re definitely heading into times we believe are ‘challenged.’” That certainly applies to Bombardier, the company’s bread and butter client, due to the delays in the C-series and now the Global 7000 program, but Brooks expressed confidence in the OEM’s future. “They make one hell of an airplane,” he said of Bombardier’s business jets, while with the C-series, “It’s just a matter of time until the airplane proves itself.”

Asked about the potential for an executive-configured C-series aircraft, Brooks said, “It probably will happen, but a C-series corporate jet versus a Global, the mission profiles are quite a bit different, [the C-series] is a bit slower, and built for different reasons.”

Innotech would seem a logical choice for spearheading such a development. Throughout its history the company has been on the forefront of innovation. It received the first STC for Ku-band satcom aboard Globals, and is now working directly with ViaSat to develop an STC for Ka-band connectivity. The company uses Catia-driven processes, leveraging the software not only for 3-D design, but also to integrate company functions from inventory control to budgeting.

Innotech is now developing organic light-emitting diode (OLED) expertise that will allow mounting flexible large screen displays in the cabin. “We’re coming up with high resolution HD cameras, which, mounted externally, can transmit images to the screen, so passengers could watch a meteor shower from the interior on a ceiling mounted OLED display, or simply create a 3-D image of a chandelier or a skylight,” said Rawlinson.

Brooks points to Innotech’s modern paint shop as another example of its innovation and attention to detail. The facility incorporates equipment to keep a constant flow of paint over the wings during application, and also has its own water filtration plant, heating system and humidity control to ensure proper paint adhesion and curing, which is a greater challenge with today’s environmentally friendlier paints.

To develop expertise for future needs, Innotech has an alliance with local trade schools, creating curricula and hiring grads. “Montreal is like Wichita,” Brooks said. “It’s a fairly extensive aviation community.” Internally, the company offers some 160 training modules enabling employees to receive accreditation in their specialties.

Here at NBAA, Innotech will have 15 or more personnel at its booth, experts in avionics, soft goods, wood, completions and MRO, and will also host an event celebrating its history. Said Brooks, “It’s no easy feat to have been the same supplier to the same industry for 60 years.” o