Héroux-Devtek has a 75-year history providing landing gears to customers such as the big OEMs, U.S. military and lunar missions. What have been the key developments since we spoke in 2015?

The highlight has been the progress in our contract for the Boeing 777 aircraft landing gear, for which we had to invest over $110 million on equipment and capacity. Since the contract was signed in December 2013, we have built and expanded factories, installed the required equipment and have developed the manufacturing process. In July 2016, our first shipment was five weeks ahead of schedule and we are now in ramp-up mode.

Following an acquisition in the United Kingdom, we have been able to expand our customer base in Europe. We won a contract in South Korea to design and build the landing gear for the next Korean Fighter, the KFX, working in partnership with Hanwha Corporation.

In addition to capacity investment, were there any innovative aspects that needed developing for the 777 contract?

The contract is build-to-print, but one thing we had to develop was the necessary surface treatment. These components are very large and the landing gears are in fact the tallest in the world. The surface treatment is state-of-the-art and we installed some special equipment to machine titanium much more rapidly. We have also installed flexible manufacturing systems (FMS) to automate the process, through which one employee can run four or five pieces of equipment simultaneously, making us very competitive.

We will also be the first in the aerospace industry to employ robotics to paint these landing gear parts. This process is still under development, but we should achieve our goal by the end of 2017. The technology is being jointly developed with another Québec company.

Héroux-Devtek’s client base is a 50:50 split between commercial and defense. How substantial is demand in Canada on the defense side?

The demand in Canada is not very large. Although it is one of the most prominent countries for aerospace in the world, our defense market in Canada is very limited. The size of our defense is simply much smaller than other countries so we have to rely on exports for business. 80% of our production is sold internationally and even the products sold in Canada are generally exported by our customers.

The United States is a huge export market for Canadian aerospace companies. With many changes underway internally and potential changes to trade agreements, do you foresee any challenges?

Our industry is very linked to the U.S. market and we have long enjoyed a free trade environment, even prior to concluding the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Canada is considered an industrial domestic source for the United States Defense. There was a treaty signed between the United States and Canada called the Defense Product Sharing Program. If we win a contract with the U.S. Air Force, for example, the Canadian military will perform the quality assessment and vice versa. Therefore, from a defense standpoint, we are very integrated. Similarly, we also export without any duties on the civil side.

We hope that free trade will remain in place. We have a factory in the United Kingdom and a concern of ours is that Brexit could change the climate of free trade. Looking at Airbus, all the wings come from the United Kingdom. If Europe decided to impose a tariff on imports from the United Kingdom, Airbus’ supply chain could be heavily impacted. For the benefit of the countries involved, aerospace is likely to continue operating as it currently is. It is a global business that sells and buys products worldwide.

In light of an increased industry focus on the environment, what initiatives is Héroux-Devtek involved in?

In the landing gear business, the typical coating used for protection against corrosion and general wear is cadmium or chrome. We have developed some new coatings, such as zinc-nickel to replace the cadmium as it is potentially harmful and can cause cancer. We are therefore looking to replace this material where possible. In relation to weight, we are developing a composite component for aircraft landing gear. Because of its nature the product has to be very resistant.

The aerospace sector is also very focused on the implementation of Industry 4.0 and breakthrough technologies. What steps is Héroux-Devtek taking in this direction?

We are currently undertaking an initiative in digitization of our manufacturing process, using less and less paper, with visual instructions on the computer. Additive manufacturing in particular is a very interesting technology for our product. In the forging of products, a very long lead time is required for building and obtaining parts from the supplier, plus the subsequent machining can result in wasting 80% of the material. Additive manufacturing reduces the long lead time and can reduce the material cost and waste by large amounts. It is now proven, with GE as a good example, that the additive manufacturing process can design lighter and more reliable components at a lesser cost. Additive manufacturing will become more and more present in our industry and will be a game changer.

What is Héroux-Devtek’s strategy for growth over the next few years?

Now that our U.K. subsidiary is well integrated, we have a solid business and are in ramp-up mode for the 777. The company is financially in very good stead. Having sold the industrial and aerostructure divisions of our business in 2012 to focus on landing gears, the growth pattern has been exponential: up from a $250 million business to $400 million, and we are targeting half a billion by 2021. We plan to make further acquisitions in complementary fields such as actuation systems and flight control where there is a lot of IP.