Flying High

---

Cirrus Design has evolved into the second-largest manufacturer of FAA certified single-engine, piston powered aircraft in the world. COO David Coleal tells Gary Toushek about its latest model, the SR22-G2.

In 1984, brothers Alan and Dale Klapmeier founded Cirrus Design Corporation in Baraboo, WI, building airplane kits. Ten years later, the company moved into its new headquarters, a 30,000-square-foot R&D facility in Duluth, MN. In 1995, the first prototype of the Cirrus SR20 made its maiden flight; a second prototype, a refined version of the first, joined the flight test program, and the following year the company proceeded with phase two of its expansion in Duluth and constructed another facility in Grand Forks, ND, to manufacture parts for its aircraft.

Sitting in the cockpit of the new Cirrus SR22-G2, looking over the avionics, one can't help compare the interior to that of a luxury automobile. Push a button; a pre-flight checklist appears on a 10.4" liquid crystal display. Push a button on the door; it opens easily, and swings up and away. Conversely, a single motion closes and secures the door's two latches. The company's marketing is aimed at an active lifestyle: you're not just buying a plane, but the ability to have more convenient, efficient, and comfortable personal transportation to help grow a business or enhance a lifestyle. The CEO is quoted as saying, "We sell time in a handy package called an aircraft." The company sold 170 planes in the first quarter of 2004, the most planes sold in its class in the aviation industry.

What goes into making this new model? Six hundred design drawings, 4,000 parts, each with a certificate of conformance, more than 300 new tools, including a new tooling fixture for bonding the fuselage together; a variety of large lay-up tools to make the fuselage skins; a new cast core technology in the lay-up process to help reduce the number of parts and make some of the lay-ups more integrated, reducing the need for secondary bond operations; and 85 new aircraft certification documents required by the Federal Aviation Administration.

"From a design perspective," says COO David Coleal, "I think we've been able to ensure that we're meeting our customers' requirements; our design philosophy is simply that everything we produce is what customers want in a single-engine aircraft: safety, performance, comfort, ease of operation and, of course, value. That's why our interiors are functional and attractive in the materials and feel, a natural compressed, composite soft-touch with paint to match."

The company's Grand Forks facility fabricates about 72,000 composite parts annually. The parts are shipped to Duluth where the fuselage is bonded using the new tooling fixture, wing and horizontal stabilizers are bonded, then the wing is mounted to the fuselage. Moving down the production line, the engine, avionics, and interiors are added, followed by painting, flight-testing, and delivery to the customer.

"Some things that set this aircraft apart from others, is that it's fully-designed from a Pro E model, using our Pro E CAD package; we had the tooling built from these models. Tolerance and datum schemes were designed well in advance so things fit together extremely well, with translated benefits of efficiency in the production line resulting in a high quality product. We had a lot of manufacturing aspects that contributed to design considerations. We had co-located teams of design engineers, manufacturing engineers, quality and supply chain personnel, with significant supplier involvement, we brought in several new vendors
and new process technologies that had to be managed effectively. We've had a significant amount of resources working to produce a faster (4 to 6 knot increase), lighter-weight (by 23 lbs), more efficiently-built aircraft. We considered a lot of the design philosophy by focusing on our target market, as well as lean innovations."

Tom Bartoe, vice-president of operations, adds, "Time-to-market was a major concern; we had a compressed time-frame for production, and it's been less than nine months from concept to launch, a reflection of our management team, which David has gone a long way to develop. Because of the team's responsiveness and control of the process, we met those timelines. We also did a Centennial Edition of the aircraft (commemorating the first flight of the Wright brothers) last summer, which we launched in about 120 days from inception to delivery, we built 100 planes and sold them in three months."

"In 1999 we produced 9 planes," says Coleal. "In 2001-02, we produced nearly one plane per day. One of our initiatives was to double our production, since we had an almost 600-plane backlog. We couldn't capture the revenue because the production system couldn't meet demand. So we focused on a lean production system by looking at the flow of the entire manufacturing process, ensuring that operations were executed logically, and looking at the non-value-added activities; labor hours were reduced from 4,000 to 1,800 per plane. In 2004 we're scheduled to produce 550 planes, a dramatic ramp-up as far as our volume and sales to the general aviation industry."

Coleal goes on to note that Cirrus doesn't want to be known only for its product. We also want to be known for our business processes, the way we manufacture, manage, and develop our supply chain, the way we introduce new products in a rapid fashion. We have to do all those things properly in order to have a successful business and to develop our core competencies of layup, bonding and assembly. Our plants are very clean, flow has improved dramatically, but as in any lean journey, it still has a long way to go to try to make it more efficient.

"We have a company-wide involvement from technicians to the highest levels of management, making sure that we have integrated team involvement; when we launch new products, if anyone has an issue with anything, it's quickly addressed. We have a culture where people feel like they're involved, are proud of what they do, and it shows in the results."