Lufthansa Technik Continues to Expand its ARC Services

Lufthansa Technik's ARC Services (Airframe Related Components) is booming. This year, ARC Services, Hamburg, turned over the 8,000th thrust reverser to a customer since the founding of the division in 1999. Percentage growth in turnover over the past years has been in the double digits, with the overall figure reaching the EUR100 million mark for ARC Services in Hamburg in 2007.

Now ARC Services is expanding the workshop in Hamburg for about EUR 9 million. A new autoclave is being acquired. The facility is used to bond composite structures under a pressure of 16 bar and a temperature of 250 C. It is designed for components measuring up to 5 metres across. In other words, ARC Services is now equipped to repair components for all engine types for the next 30 years.

ARC Services serves the global market, together with its subsidiary companies in the USA and China: Lufthansa Technik Composite Tulsa und Lufthansa Technik Shenzhen. The core business is overhaul and maintenance of thrust reversers, engine cowls, control surfaces, radomes and other components made of composite materials.

In Hamburg, the ARC production unit redesigned the workshop in accordance with lean principles that has done a great deal to streamline work processes. On the pilot line the turnaround time for the IAE V2500 was reduced by 30 percent after five months, from 67 days to 41 days, and the division is striving for 31 days by the end of 2008.

Meanwhile, production is working on two "flowlines." The line for the CF6-80, the Trent 300, 700 and CFM56-7 can overhaul up to 150 thrust reverser halves a year, working on a 24-hour cycle. On the second flowline, which is dedicated to the CFM 56-3, the CFM 56-5A/5B/5C and the IAE V2500, up to 400 thrust reversers per year can be returned to the customers at a work cycle of eight hours per half. Large thrust reverser parts like the CF6-80 Trans Cowl and the V2500 Sleeve, which are both moving cowling elements, are also overhauled using the flowline principle.

ARC Services is a certified development operation according to EASA Part 21 and is very active in the development of cost-saving repairs of composite materials and of PMA parts (Parts Manufacturing Approval of the Federal Aviation Agency in the USA). In the large component area, the development of the steel inner barrel (an inner lining) for the CFM56-5A inlet cowl generated considerable savings for the customer, as did the repair of the fan cowl door developed by ARC Services for the IAE V2500 engine. In the small parts area, the division developed hundreds of PMAs in collaboration with PMA manufacturers.

Lufthansa Technik:

Lufthansa Technik Group, with 29 production sites and more than 25,000 employees world-wide, is one of the leading manufacturer-independent providers of services for the aviation industry. In 2007, the Group's overall revenues stood at EUR 3.6 billion. Lufthansa Technik is licensed internationally as an MRO, design and production organization. The Group's services encompass the entire spectrum of services in the areas of maintenance, repair, overhaul, modification and conversion, engines and components.