In the beginning there was an altimeter - Meggitt PLC

WAS
Meggitt Aerospace
Equipment (MAE)
NOW
Meggitt Control Systems
Minus MAE’s fire detection and
aerospace seals businesses, five
product lines that customers
understand, from eight facilities
reporting to one management team.
FIVE PRODUCT LINES
Aerospace valves
North Hollywood (formerly
Whittaker Controls) and Coventry
(formerly Dunlop Equipment)
Thermal management
Heat exchangers from Birmingham
(formerly Serck Aviation) and Troy
(Stewart Warner South Wind)
Environment control systems
Addison (formerly Keith Products),
Dunstable and Simi Valley (Meggitt
Thermal Systems and before that,
the Avicas)
Electronic controls
Corona (formerly Meggitt Airdynamics)
Energy
North Hollywood (formerly
Whittaker Controls)
00 8
REVIEW | WINTER 2010
> In today’s uncertain climate, does he still
believe it is not all about price? His response is
unequivocal: “I KNOW it is not all about price.”
Crane eventually came head to head with
Meggitt on a transformational acquisition—
Whittaker Controls. Despite Simpkins leading
the valuation team on the company he knew
intimately from his Whittaker Corporation
days, Crane lost to one Terry Twigger, then
Meggitt’s Finance Director. He put in a new
management team and offered Simpkins a
job that led to his last role as finance director
of the Meggitt Aerospace Equipment division.
‘MAE’ was $130 million a year in
1999, growing to $800 million before it was
absorbed into Meggitt’s new structure in
2010. Simpkins believes all successful
businesses must reinvent themselves
periodically. “Markets, customers and
business problems change. And you have
to change with them.” MAE had become
too diverse and management overhead
across multiple facilities too high. The new
Meggitt Control Systems is organised around
product lines that are easier for customers
to understand. Divisional management is
lean, yet strong and, with clearer lines of
communication, more focused.
That focus is about following agreed
strategy. “When you head up a business,
it is not about you. It is about the people
around you—giving them interesting work
to accomplish and setting priorities.” He
paraphrases corporate financial strategist,
Dr Ruth Bender. “Investors invest in
companies and companies invest in projects
to take returns back to investors.” That’s
how Simpkins defines strategy with his
management team, distilling its execution
into discrete projects. “Businesses fail when
there are too many projects or too many
people starting projects that are ill-timed or
misaligned with strategy. That’s why we go
through a process that says how and when
we are going to invest in them for the greater
good.”
To win new business, he wants MCS to
get closer to its customers, with engineers
playing a direct role. “There’s no point in just
showing up and introducing the new sales guy
on the block. We need to have relationships
with them on a much deeper level, engineers
solving problems with engineers and
participating in technology demonstration
projects.”
He wants to develop an aftermarket
based not on raising prices but on wrapping
those services around products again.
”Saying yes to the customer on a task that is
All successful businesses
must reinvent themselves
periodically
impossible to perform is not service. Having
an open relationship with the customer about
what can be done realistically, is. Over all,
customers want improved on-time delivery,
better quality and more transparency on cost,
which is why we are creating projects under
each of these headings to deliver and remain
customer -focused.”
A poorly-used test facility at the
division’s Indianapolis plant has been sold
(it buys what it needs from the vendor).
Addison’s cost base has been reduced by
consolidating sites. More favourable lease
terms have been negotiated for the division’s
electronic controls base. Customer focus
has been renewed with new development
programmes and milestones met on a
range of programmes renegotiated when
Saying yes to the customer on a task that is impossible
to perform is not service. Having an open relationship
with the customer about what can be done is
the division restructured 18 months ago.
Locations for the most effective economies
in which to manufacture some commodity
product lines are being investigated.
The research needed for projects
inevitably powers the rumour mill,
one of Simpkins’ pet hates. “I set up
projects and we go out into the facilities to
gather as many facts as we can to make
decisions and suddenly it goes round that a
decision has been made when nothing of the
kind has happened.” Simpkins’ promise to
employees is that he will tell them when a
decision has been made at the appropriate
time and lay out its logic for all to see. “A new
product introduction process, a new bid and
proposals process, becoming a Gold supplier
makes us better. Gossip and speculation adds
nothing to our business.”
Simpkins reads from a list of
questions sent to him by employees before
a forthcoming ‘Town Hall’ meeting, twiceyearly
events he has committed to holding in
which he will address the entire workforce
at every Meggitt Control Systems facility.
He will answer every question. “I guarantee
transparency and a fair hearing for anyone
who takes the trouble to voice an opinion or
a concern. We have a lot of resources in the
division and across the group and if there is a
problem, I can find someone to help solve it.”
Meggitt Control Systems, like all Meggitt
divisions, is developing a business that will
run on reliable systems and processes. “We