Manitoba Aerospace Week

20 MANITOBA AEROSPACE WEEK May 27 - June 4, 2016 By Pat Rediger ��������������������������������������� I t may have taken some late nights, and a few weekends were sacrificed, but Cormer Group Industries got the job done. In early 2015, the Winnipeg multi-national manufacturer of world-class machine details and assemblies completed a 787 Dreamliner airplane retrofit project for their client, Boeing Canada Winnipeg, in a remarkably fast and efficient manner. On April 25, 2016, Boeing visited Cormer and held a special ceremony to show its appreciation. "We were very surprised to be recognized," says Leo Sousa, President of Cormer Group Industries. "Boeing presented us with a certificate and a model of the 787 airplane to put in our display stand. Our employees were proudly taking pictures." Boeing is the world's largest aerospace company. Boeing Canada Winnipeg was looking for a company to support short-flow requirements for various new components for the 787 Dreamliner — a long-range, mid-size wide-body, twin-engine jet airliner — in order to meet its manufacturing commitments to Boeing South Carolina for the 787 program. When the contract was awarded to Cormer in January of 2015, speed was of the essence. "They came to us saying, 'We're on a deadline and you need to rise to the challenge,' " Sousa says. "We had to add additional resources and manpower in a very condensed timeline. That was really the biggest challenge. It was also a matter of reprioritizing all of our customer commitments and ensuring that our current customers and current work orders didn't fall behind schedule." Cormer worked hard to dramatically improve the first article part delivery and also significantly improved the first production shipment. Sousa notes that the project should have taken around five months, but Cormer completed the work in about three. "Two months doesn't sound like an awful lot of time, but the fact that we were able to bring it all together on a tight deadline was pretty impressive," he says. "We completed the project right the first time, which is pretty rare when you're tackling a project of this magnitude." Sousa adds that the tight deadline also put a strain on the company's outside suppliers, but they stepped up to the plate. "This was a great demonstration of collaboration among local companies in the industry," he says. "Without the local collaboration, being able to coordinate and visit each other with challenges, or talk to each other quite readily, this project probably wouldn't have been as quick and successful as it was." For Cormer, this project was part of an ongoing relationship with Boeing. "We work closely with Boeing and we have regular meetings," Sousa says. "We had a relationship with them and had proven ourselves over the course of many years, which is why they turned to us in a pinch. It had been some time since we have launched a new product for them, so everybody felt good about it." ❚ EXPERTS IN AEROSPACE AND DEFENSE MOBILITY MANUFACTURING: precision high speed machining, post processing, assemblies & integration CANADA Winnipeg - Church Avenue Winnipeg - Bentall Street Miramichi, NB MEXICO Querétaro, Qro USA Auburn, WA GOING ABOVE AND BEYOND BOEI NG CA NA DA W I N N I PEG R ECOGN I Z ES COR M ER GROU P I N DUST R I ES FOR GR EAT WOR K

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