Mark Scully • 08.04.19 •  2 mins

Mark Scully, our Head of Technology for Propulsion & Advanced Systems, gives his view on the UK Technology and Capability Showcase for Collins Aerospace.

Mark Scully, our Head of Technology for Propulsion & Advanced Systems, gives his view on the UK Technology and Capability Showcase for Collins Aerospace, held last month in Charlotte, NC 25-27th March.

A number of UK SMEs from the supply chain were hosted by the Collins Aerospace group as part of a trade mission to encourage inward investment into the UK.

Organised by the UK Government’s Department for International Trade (DIT), it gave an opportunity for UK suppliers to meet with Collins Aerospace and discuss potential business opportunities. Paolo Dal Cin, Vice President, Operations & Quality, gave us an introduction to the company which was followed by a briefing by Kris Pinnow, Vice President, Global Strategic Sourcing, on Collins Aerospace’s supplier engagement processes and expectations.

A closed session was also held between ATI, BEIS, DIT and the Leadership team from Collins Aerospace to describe the UK innovation ecosystem and wider UK policy. A panel session was held on UK Industrial Strategy and the Aerospace Sector Deal, with insights from John Thompson, Head of Aerospace at DIT, Greg Warren, Senior Policy Advisor at BEIS, and myself.

Throughout the day the UK supply chain companies held B2B meetings with representatives from across the Collins Aerospace group. Parallel sessions between ATI and Collins Aerospace Supply Chain teams also identified a number of potential technology project opportunities through Collins Aerospace businesses in the UK.

ATI will be following up on these leads to explore and develop collaborative opportunities. Since the event a number of UK companies have already indicated some progress following the initial meetings and we look forward to further developments in the future.

The trade mission also gave Greg Warren and I a chance to visit Collins Aerospace’s Rockford facility to discuss UK opportunities for electrification technology. This was a particularly timely visit following the announcement the day before regarding the United Technologies X-Plane demonstrator.

We met several members of the senior team including Bill Dolan, Vice President Engineering for the Power & Controls Business Unit, Juan De Bedout, Vice President Advanced Technologies & Effectiveness and Todd Spierling, Director of Research & Technology for the Power & Controls Business Unit. Joining us from the UK Power & Controls R&T Centre were Joshua Parkin, Director of Technology and Marc Holme, Engineering Director. We promoted the UK as a great opportunity for Collins Aerospace’s ambitions in electrification. We were delighted to be given a site tour which included some impressive research and test facilities to support electrical systems development. ATI and BEIS plan to follow up with Collins Aerospace to identify and develop any potential opportunities for growth in the UK.

For more information on the United Technologies X-Plane Demonstrator:  https://tech.utc.com/-/media/Project/UTRC/UTRC-Intranet/Technology/Tech-Website/UTAP/A-Technical-Analysis-of-United-Technologies-Advanced-Projects-X-Plane—March-2019—Final.pdf <LINK DOES NOT WORK>

Participating UK suppliers included:

• Bradfor Ltd
• Broadway Engineering Ltd
• CCP Gransden Ltd
• Cecence
• Columbia
• Denroy Plastics
• Exact CNC
• GKN Aerospace
• IPC
• Marshall
• McBraida
• Nasmyth Group Ltd
• Neural Digital
• Poeton industries
• Portsmouth Aviation Ltd
• Resonate Testing
• Senior Aerospace BWT
• Smiths Harlow
• Thales
• Tods Aerospace
• Trackwise
• TT Electronics
• Vesarien
• WL Gore