It's all go!

Now operating as a separate company within the aerospace division of Avingtrans plc, Mike Richardson hears about the exciting expansion plans in store for Sigma Composites. There has been a flurry of activity at Sigma Components recently. Operating within Avingtrans’ aerospace division, the company employs over 500 people across six sites in Hinckley, Nottingham, Derby, Buckingham, Farnborough and Chengdu, China. Specialising in manufacturing precision components, fixtures and fittings in a range of traditional and composite materials for aero engine and airframe applications, the company recently secured Clean Sky funding for a research programme called COMPipe to help reduce the weight of traditional pipe assemblies. Furthermore, it has signed a £100 million long-term agreement with Rolls-Royce to supply rigid pipe assemblies and expanded its Hinckley facility to meet growing demand. It also drew praise from the Business and Energy Minister, Michael Fallon MP, during his visit to the Paris Airshow when he highlighted how companies like Sigma Components are helping to ensure that the UK’s aerospace sector remains Number One in Europe. The company decided to lead the COMPipe project because it aligns with its vision for the development of its product line for the aerospace industry. Having acquired Sigma Composites last February, Sigma Components’ founder and managing director Mark Johnson says the group is excited about being awarded the COMPipe project, which is an example of where the customer is looking for an improved performance product to supersede and replace an existing one. “The COMPipe project looks at completely new manufacturing methods regarding how products are created and knows no bounds as to where it will go,” he begins. “It’s providing some really innovative ideas, and while some of them may fall by the wayside, the odd one or two could give us the technological advantage to lead the market in that particular area of aerospace composites.” I’m curious to discover what are the biggest composites production-related demands faced by the company. Avingtrans Group’s Sigma Composites is said to offer a complete capability in the manufacture of composite structural and non-structural components from materials including carbon, glass, Kevlar and speciality hybrid fibre reinforcements. “Sigma Composites has a long history in this industry and we’ve used some of the techniques we have for customer service, quick response and same day service on some of the parts and brought them across into our aerospace production units too,” claims Sigma Components (Buckingham) director/general manager, Tom Barrett. “We have a completely different mix of operational requirements, types of industries and types of customers. “What we bring to the composites industry is a steady operational performance that the aerospace sector demands, and because of the traceability and quality standards that are ingrained in that process, we’re now bringing across failure mode effective analysis (FMEA) for composites and also introducing sectional diagrams on some of the assemblies we’re making, plus physical tests on some of the processes we manufacture to.” Local source, global reach What caught my eye is the company’s ‘from a local source to a global capability’ tagline, so I ask Johnson to provide further explanation of his company’s operational ethos. “We recognised that whilst the higher level tiers in the aerospace supply chain were globalising quite quickly, the SMEs were not,” states Johnson. “We saw an opportunity to generate a group of companies that could function like a local SME, but operate globally too. Consequently, we offer OEMs all the advantages that they normally get from smaller local companies. Some of the bigger OEMs want to deal with local companies, but they would prefer these smaller local companies to have a global reach. “We’ve created a group of companies that operate as though they’re fairly small, but also operate globally when connected to a significant facility, like our one in China. It’s about giving the OEMs access to a company that has the agility, speed and cost structures of a small entity, yet actually operates globally. We can develop a product in the UK and give the OEM a quick response whilst the specifications are being decided. When the product reaches volume production - and suits a lower cost manufacturing economy - we’ll move it to China for our customer rather than them doing it themselves. You only get success by making the customers’ lives easier.” In outlining the reasons for Avingtrans’ business acquisitions last year, I ask Johnson whether Sigma Components is now truly a one-stop shop for aerospace component manufacture. “Yes, and we are getting positive input from our major customers that like the way we’re structured and the way we respond to their demands,” he replies. “We’re gaining significant growth and new business. Avingtrans is encouraging Sigma to find other companies that fit within that ethos and look at acquiring them. The three companies we acquired last year are being integrated into the ‘Sigma way’. We’re getting them thinking about how to use our global footprint and using some of the tools and techniques we’ve developed in the UK. We want our acquisitions to take the model that has worked well for us over the last five years and expand to a larger group of companies.” Johnson ends by saying the company is following a set of attributes that have been spread throughout the Avingtrans group and can be summarised by three key characteristics: integrity, quality and agility. “Integrity means we do what we say we’re going to do, and if we can’t we’ll be honest and say why,” he concludes. “On quality, we have to deliver products on time and they have got to be good. Agility is about improving as we become a bigger company and how to ensure customers still feel we’re operating like we did when we were a smaller company. Yes, we want to be the biggest and best small aerospace company in the world, but we want to have characteristics for our employees and customers that make us feel like we’re still a small company and that we still act as an individual entity. We are developing all these things as we grow and it is an exciting journey.” www.sigmacomposites.co.uk