In the beginning there was an altimeter - Meggitt PLC

TONY’S TOUR
> All structures are lined with paper from
which tell-tale oil stains cannot evaporate.
Fuel tank manufacturing starts at
Rockmart early in the day and stops at three
o’clock in the afternoon before the heat of
the day hits. The hours are child-friendly,
attracting many female workers. Fans run all
night long, ready for the morning shift.
the coolest part of the plant is mpc rockmart’s
brand-new 126,000 square foot composites facility,
hosting the manufacturing of interior cabins
and the gallimaufry of accessories needed for
all models of Sikorsky helicopters. Its 15,000
square foot pressurised clean room contains
the composite-embedded element work for
the V22 rotorcraft ice guard programme,
strands of production that balance nicely with
the fuel cell business. (See “Blade runner”
and “Under Sikorsky’s skin” on pages 34
and 38).
There is a five-axis machine centre for
trimming composites, cutting fibre glass
doors and making the tooling that lies at the
00 28
REVIEW | WINTER 2010
Above: Heated products like this
electro-thermal ice protection component
under repair represent one of two streams
in Rockmart’s rapidly growing composites
business. The other is unheated laminates
for helicopter interiors.
Right: Manufacturing the side panel of
an electro-thermal iceguard for a V22
nose cone spinner, work that takes
place in the new 126,000 square foot
composites facility.
heart of all composites work. There are rows
of sewing machines. Neat workstations are
optimised for cementing foam onto metal or
composites onto panels ready for upholstery.
Operators lay up composite ply into metal
moulds for helicopter nose cone ice guards
based on patterns beamed onto them by
advanced laser projectors. They wind wire
around nails to create the heater elements
placed into the cones reinforced with
lightweight cloth.
Tools in the interior composites area are
in heavy metal into which pre-impregnated
plies are laid. At the end of each day, most
of these tools lie inside vacuum bags
which compress the plies before curing in
autoclaves.
The same degree of buffing and
grinding that applies to fuel cells is deployed
to deliver smooth surfaces for parts destined
for upholstery and ice guards.
The composites facility is a breath of
fresh air in more ways than one. The work
is fine and light, the air cool and, what
excites McCann most, space without walls
and floors—the ideal blank canvas on which
an optimal manufacturing architecture can
be constructed. Here McCann and team do
not have to work around the limitations of a
factory built to spin cotton.
Still, he’s fond of the old cotton mill and
Yankee Stadium: its history, its hardwood, its
heroic handcraft—and his very drab office. ●
The hours are
child-friendly,
attracting many
female workers