january 2008
example, and in China for GE. We have been working
in this strategic way with all our major customers -
looking at their manufacturing strategies and the role
we could play in supporting them.’
So how does Apollo manage the process of getting
the right materials to the right place in the right form?
Wilkins explains: ‘A typical supply chain could involve
a major aircraft manufacturer that assembles the final
product, supported by component manufacturers and
their subcontractors around the world. Each of those
subcontractors wants to take advantage of the global
metal price and capacity but each one will have
different equipment, a different manufacturing
strategy, and a different attitude to the way they do
business.’
To give a simple example, two companies making the
same product would be using exactly the same
specification of material, the same thickness of billet
and so on, but one might have a twin spindle machine
and therefore require a billet that is twice the size of
the other one with a single spindle machine. ‘The
service level needs to be tailored to the individual
company, and that covers the form in which the
material is supplied, the regularity with which we
supply it, batch quantities, in fact everything that
affects the physical delivery of the material, so we have
to get very involved in understanding their needs in a
very detailed way. So at one level we have the macro-
“By aggregating demand on a global
basis we can buy the mill-produced
quantities, but to optimise usage and
to eliminate waste requires a close
working relationship with each
subcontractor at a local level.”
Stuart Wilkins, Apollo CEO
materials supply subcon scene
Customers benefit from Apollo’s bulk purchasing
power with materials producers
global issue of demand aggregation and planning, and
placing large-volume purchase orders on the material
producers, but the service we provide is going to be
determined by the needs of each individual
subcontractor.’
And to provide that service Apollo has to be local to
the subcontractor, wherever they are in the world,
which means it has to be both a local and global
company. ‘We have gradually become more
international’ says Wilkins, ‘but because we were UKbased
and very much driven by the European aerospace
industry we didn’t have a location in North America.
We realised that strategically, looking at the industry in
the longer term we would have to be global and looked
at how we could go about that. Could we acquire, or
should we be acquired? We came to the conclusion that
the most sensible arrangement was to join forces with
ThyssenKrupp. They are already the market leader in
North America and we are the market leader in Europe.
Putting the two together gives a leading global
company. We are already solidly based in the two
developed markets and as a result can focus on
developing new areas such as the Far East and
expanding our range of services.
‘The thing that we are concerned with is the
efficiency of the supply chain. No material supply
chain is as efficient as it could be, and our opportunity
is to work out how to make it as efficient as possible. Let
me give some examples of what we would do to find
that efficiency. On aluminium, for example, we might
machine the billet, drill tooling holes and deliver that
direct to the machine bed. For one of our customers, for
instance, they call off material from us by a computer
link directly to our shop floor. It prints out their job
card, we produce to that, stamp it, and that paperwork
is delivered with the metal direct to their machining
centre. We have effectively ticked off the first three
steps in the manufacturing process.
‘In France, for SNECMA, we produce titanium bar
which we pre-machine so that it can be forged without
any danger of cracking. For GE in China, we cut
aluminium sheet profiles on high-speed CNC routers
with nesting software, after cutting we de-burr them,
and inspect them. They are almost components; after
they leave us they just need to be formed and maybe
punched. We cut, de-burr and clean tube for Airbus,
and for another of our customers we are actually
manage a group of subcontractors who deliver finished
parts from around the world. I think of our range of
services as a menu; if you are a subcontractor or an
OEM you can look at that menu and choose the services
that are relevant to you. We put this range of
capabilities in front of our customers and discuss what
they would like to do, how far they want to take it, and
what role they want us to play. And they become quite
strategic discussions and start to define the relationship
we are going to have.’ www.apollometals.com
MWP
73
To view a Ceros magazine you need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser and have the flash player 8 or higher installed. To install the latest flash player, click the icon above, install the flash plugin and then click here to refresh this page.