DIVERSIFICATION AND POSITIONING ARE KEYS TO OVERCOMING
MARKET CHALLENGES
BY : RICK TAYLOR Vice President , Altek
In 2020 and 2021 , all economic sectors around the world were negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic . Aerospace suppliers were no exception , with nearly all manufacturers and other vendors supplying parts and components to aerospace OEMs , Tier 1s , and Tier 2s being hit harder than many other industries .
The blows to the industry are a confluence of inter-related assaults on the supply chain such as : » logistical constraints on raw materials » the halting of commercial and business air travel » virtual work in an industry that requires workers to be on the factory floor » necessitated layoffs » renewed demand for a now unavailable workforce » the unrelated-but-impac�ul continued groundings of the 737-MAX
Altek is still fighting these headwinds . In fact , most manufacturers that were supporting the 737-MAX have been suffering with the unfortunate grounding of the entire fleet worldwide for about two years .
Nearly 45 years ago , Altek was founded as a manufacturer of medical devices . With the downturn of the economy in 2007 and 2008 , Altek made the strategic decision to become AS9100 Certified . We were already supporting the aerospace Industry without this certification , and we knew our opportunities were somewhat limited . Becoming AS9100 Certified launched Altek in the industry and had a big impact , enabling us to evolve from component manufacturing into contract manufacturing . This quickly advanced into opportunities to supply both industries with finished and tested subassemblies .
Altek , Inc . strategically expanded industries and customers , while redefining its brand , to come out of the pandemic and other market constraints stronger .
In 2020 the grounding of the MAX fleet hit us especially hard . Aerospace was now more than 50 percent of our business , with the majority of that supporting the MAX . This left us with a significant amount of idle capacity and too many people . We scrambled to fill the void as quickly as possible to protect our staff .
One of our old aerospace contacts went to work for Amazon . We explored the type of suppliers Amazon looks for and discovered they were opening fulfillment centers at a record pace around the world . Our contact ’ s initial response was that their needs were beyond our core competencies ; they needed assistance with creating highly visual stock picking systems . We visited a few of their sites and instantly saw that we could help , and we did . We started with lighting systems for each shelf on their inventory racks that led to many other opportunities . Wire harnesses with sensors attached were assembled inside of extruded plastic housings , and extruded shapes that
134 NORTHWEST AEROSPACE NEWS
PNAA ADVANCE / 2022