2016 FACC Leonardo: Winning team honored in front of 1.000 guests

Ried im Innkreis, November 29, 2016 – Upper Austrian aviation industry supplier FACC this year presented their internal team award for innovation, the “FACC Leonardo”, for the third time. In front of around 1.000 guests at the Rieder Messehalle, FACC CEO Robert Machtlinger presented the coveted trophy to the “Thermography Qualification” team. The team around project manager Helmuth Höller developed an NDI thermographic inspection method for composite components.

Innovations, ideas management, and continuous further development of the company are core values of the FACC culture. For this reason, FACC has been awarding an internal team award for innovation, the FACC Leonardo, since 2014. The Upper Austrian aviation industry supplier uses this to recognize special achievements within the company. Following several preliminary elimination rounds, the final five teams were presented to guests at the Christmas party in the Rieder Messehalle on November 26. FACC CEO Robert Machtlinger took advantage of this opportunity to explicitly thank all the participants: “FACC has developed into a global player. Our components can now be found in all modern commercial aircraft. This longstanding success is based on performance, output, respect, and team spirit. All the submitted projects impressively demonstrate the crew’s innovative strength and dedication. Many thanks to all of our colleagues who took part this year.”

“Thermography Qualification" team wins FACC Leonardo 2016
The presentation of the final projects was followed by the eagerly awaited announcement of the results. The “Thermography Qualification” team under project manager Helmuth Höller emerged as the winner. “The one hundred percent correctness of all components is an essential criterion in the aviation industry. Conventional inspection methods are extremely time-consuming and expensive. For this reason, we decided to search for a solution in order to make this process more efficient. In the end, the team developed a totally unique system that reduces the inspection time significantly for one tenth of the acquisition costs. The jury’s decision in favor of a winning project was extremely exciting due to the number of high-quality submissions. The four teams placed second in the end only missed out on first place by the narrowest of margins. The final featured projects such as “A350 OHSC Ramp-up”, in which the project team implemented a sequencing model, thereby increasing productivity by 250 percent. The “Boeing Program Process Optimization” project has also made a major contribution to cost-effectiveness. “Cash Cow Engine Products” has doubled the contribution margin in the Engines & Nacelles division in a matter of three years and “Team Spirit Productivity Increase Plant 3” has also realized ambitious goals. With innovations in production, the project team achieved a one hundred percent increase in turnover in the same area in less than twelve months.

FACC’s value quartet as an evaluation criterion
The company’s core values of performance, output, respect, and team spirit played an important role in the evaluation of projects by the jury. “One of our major concerns is to highlight the numerous projects and the amount of effort our colleagues have invested in them. This commitment provides further proof of our FACC spirit, which has inspired the company to such remarkable success in recent decades. The focus here is on our value compass, because the entire corporate philosophy is based on this and we all live up to these values at FACC,” says Robert Machtlinger, describing the idea behind the FACC award.

About FACC
FACC AG is one of the world’s leading companies in the design, development and production of advanced fiber reinforced composite components and systems for the aviation industry. Their range of products reaches from structural components for the fuselage and wings to engine components to complete passenger cabins for commercial aircraft, business jets and helicopters. FACC is a supplier to all large aircraft manufacturers such as Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, Embraer, Sukhoi, and COMAC as well as for engine manufacturers and sub-suppliers of manufacturers.
In the 2015/16 business year FACC achieved an annual turnover of 587.5 million euros. The company employs a staff of more than 3,000 employees in Austria.

More information is available at www.facc.com.