Magnifique: Acutec recognized as top supplier for global leader

Jan. 27—VERNON TOWNSHIP — It has been almost four years since the term "supply chain" entered the everyday lexicon of Americans in a way it never had before.

One Meadville manufacturer has been doing everything it can to put a positive spin on the term that has evolved into something of a dreaded catchphrase, and one of the world's leading makers of aircraft components has taken note of that effort. While both companies expect to continue reaping benefits from their relationship, the Crawford County economy could ride the resulting tailwind as well.

Acutec Precision Aerospace, Inc. was recognized Friday as the No. 1 supplier for Safran Landing Systems, a subsidiary of Safran S.A., a global conglomerate based in France that manufactures airplane and rocket engines as well as other aerospace components. With more than 83,000 employees, the company had $22 billion in revenue last year.

The honor — or perhaps the aircraft-sized sheet cakes that accompanied it — was enough to draw Frédéric Lino, executive vice president for purchasing and supply chain of Safran Electrical & Power, all the way from Paris for the occasion. Standing before a towering screen showing images of two of the Boeing jets that use Safran equipment featuring Acutec parts, Lino addressed an audience of nearly 100 Acutec employees involved in the production of parts used by Safran.

"Acutec has demonstrated exceptional performance by maintaining a 100 percent on-time delivery rate and perfect quality at 100 percent on-quality delivery with no quality incidents," Lino said. "These results are even more impressive considering the challenges posed by the post-COVID-19 aerospace context, marked by material shortages, capacity issues, labor shortages and ever-increasing requirements from the customers."

Acutec's reward for its hard work? More work.

It wasn't just the enormous dessert that drew Lino to northwestern Pennsylvania, it was also what he and Elisabeth Smith, Acutec's president, chief executive officer and majority owner since 2014, called "the ramp up."

"In 2024," Lino told the audience, "we are set to double the volumes achieved in 2023, reflecting the industry's rapid recovery and Safran's commitment to aggressive ramp-up strategies."

Doubling its volume over the course of a year will mean doubling the supplies provided by companies like Acutec — a short runway for such a steep ascent.

As Acutec employees mingled following his remarks and the de rigueur group photo, Lino acknowledged the challenge ahead.

"Yeah," he said with a quick smile, "that seems significant — that's huge."

Central to the challenge, Lino and Smith agreed would be adding more people like the Acutec staff members present for the occasion. The company has more than 420 employees at three sites — approximately 390 split between 280,000 square feet of manufacturing space in Crawford Business Park just outside Meadville and an 80,000-square-foot facility in Saegertown plus another 30 or so at a 40,000-square-foot plant in St. Stephen, South Carolina.

To handle the demands of the ramp-up, Smith said Acutec has hired a dedicated recruiter and broadened the span of its most intense recruitment efforts to a 200-mile radius. The plan is to primarily target technical school graduates, but Smith said plenty of available positions do not require technical training programs. These efforts come in addition to an existing machinist training program.

In short, the company is hiring.

In fact, Acutec is hiring so fast that it can be hard even for Smith to keep up. Moments after she said the company had already hired 11 people in 2024, a human resources staff member said that number had doubled in the past week.

"Based on the demand that we see right now, we have an immediate need to add a net of 54 people," Smith said. "Should we be able to exceed that target, we would be grateful and would welcome the ability to do so, specifically into those production positions where we train folks with no experience."

Smith was optimistic that the benefits of the hiring would extend beyond the cavernous manufacturing spaces the company occupies in what was once the home of rayon producer American Viscose Corp.

"We're trying to make sure we're drawing folks to this area as well," she said. "We don't want our growth to be at the expense of other companies in the area."

Helping with both the production for which the company was being recognized and the ongoing recruitment effort, Smith said, is the fact that Acutec employees don't just feel a sense of ownership in the company, they literally own a stake.

Two years ago, Smith, a second-generation owner and company executive, sold 25 percent of the firm to its workers through an employee stock ownership plan. The ESOP shares, then valued at $5.5 million, were set to roll out over the next 10 years to current and future employees, she said at the time.

The investment appeared to be reaping dividends Friday.

"Can we get the whole team up here for a group photo?" Smith asked as Lino joined her in shepherding and cajoling the audience members to join them before the projector screen. "You guys are the ones that made it happen."

Mike Crowley can be reached at (814) 724-6370 or by email at mcrowley@meadvilletribune.com.