Many of you have already seen this, but I realized I hadn’t posted it on the blog yet. About a month ago, the reporter at the Wichita Eagle who covers the aerospace industry in Wichita came out to our warehouse and did a nice little story for us. The story was on the front page of the business section and featured two nice big photos of me and Brian Middleton (the President/CEO). Unfortunately, the article has already moved off the Eagle’s main site and into their archives, so I’m reposting here for posterity.
BUSINESS STORES, TRACKS AIRPLANE PARTS
Brian Middleton opened Aero-Spaces - a warehousing and data management business – by request. A Kentucky-based supplier wanted a place to store parts it builds and ships to Wichita for Spirit AeroSystems and for the inventory to be managed.
The supplier, Roll Forming Corp., turned to Middleton, who as part owner of D&O Engineering markets Roll Forming to manufacturers. In response, Middleton opened Aero-Spaces at 1637 S. Baehr in 9,000 square feet of space in March 2007.
Aero-Spaces is breaking even and poised to grow, Middleton said.
The parts – stringers for Boeing 767s, 777s and 747s – are shipped from Roll Forming to Aero-Spaces, where they are inspected and stamped for quality control, stored and delivered according to Spirit’s schedule. A stringer reinforces the wing or fuselage of a plane.
In addition, Aero-Spaces’ custom-designed software to manage the inventory to Spirit’s requests.
The software tracks what is shipped, what’s on hand and changes in inventor y requests and forecasts from Spirit.
“Every morning, we know what changes they made,” Middleton said.
The software also has the capability to flag when it’s time for a vendor to begin building additional parts.
“We can give them a production schedule,” Middleton said.
It can analyze the optimum number of parts to build, based on interest rates and how much they cost to manufacture.
It’s a reflection of a trend by planemakers not to have a lot of parts on hand.
“Everybody is trying to shrink their inventories,” Middleton said.
Aero-Spaces is set up to manage a minimum and maximum-type inventory system adopted by Spirit and some manufacturers. The system sets ranges for the number of parts the manufacturer wants kept on hand at all times.
The software analyzes and keeps track of that, Middleton said.
Aero-Spaces is a small company. It has one full-time employee, Ryan Corcoran, its general manager, who is the computer expert. It has three part-time employees.
Roll Forming is its biggest customer. It does business with other companie s, but on a smaller scale.
“Now that we have the system set up, we could do this for other people,” Middleton said.
As the company grows, Middleton said he will lease additional warehouse space.
The company is able to design software to match systems with other manufact urers.
“Software is the key component,” Corcoran said.
Middleton joined D&O Engineering in 1979 and manages the office in Wichita.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in aviation science from College of the Ozarks.
Reach Molly McMillin at 316-269-6708 or mmcmillin@wichitaeagle.com.
