Reinventing the core

Saatchi and Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts said recently in reference to the recession, “invest in the core like crazy…reinvent that core and ruthlessly eliminate and reduce what’s not core”.

The Game Changer Project, a New Zealand Trade and Enterprise report based on 13 Global Fortune 500 companies that have been through three recessions, concludes similarly that a focus on the core is essential.

This focus requires full understanding of what the core is – a fundamental objective of NZTE’s Better by Design and Manufacturing + programmes.

Pacific Aerospace, which specialises in short take-off and landing (STOL) utility aircraft, is a prime example of a company that has worked through both programmes .

CEO Damian Camp says the Pacific Aerospace’s niche is aircraft that can be used on short, unpaved, rough airstrips – with the P-750XL as the company’s main ‘workhorse’.

“Our aircraft develop the higher lift demanded in hotter and higher places, where the air is thinner. We noticed that these areas formed more and more of our market and we formalised our marketing strategy to focus on the ‘equatorial band’ – including PNG, African and Asian countries, and South America.”

As a result, the company has refined its brand, coming up with an entirely new aircraft category, XSTOL – extreme short takeoff and landing.

This is defined as aircraft that can take off and land in less than 800 feet with a load greater than the aircraft’s empty weight.

Camp says the XSTOL category gives Pacific Aerospace a market niche of its own.

Manufacturing + consultant Mike Pratt set Pacific Aerospace the “greatest imaginable challenge” – a blue skies goal of where they wanted to be in three to five years, with systems and procedures to achieve this.

The company is using 100-day planning cycles to achieve the milestones it has set itself.

Through these ideas, and using lean manufacturing techniques, some remarkable efficiencies have been achieved.

“It’s a culture of continuous improvement. We call it PACE – ‘Pacific Aerospace Competitive Edge’ – that has buy in from our staff. We’re tapping into their skills and have transformed the company culture,” Camp says.

In one outstanding example it was found that by lifting the wing assembly jig off the floor by 40 cm, leading fuel tanks could be fitted without moving to another jig, saving five days.

Pacific Aerospace has also been innovative in credit arrangements in a time of recession, setting up an aircraft lease-to-own programme through which customers have access to the aircraft immediately but undertake full purchase later.