Patrick Durrant | Sydney
Heat Treatment Australia (HTA) is becoming further esconced in major US supply chains with another accreditation from Boeing for their LA facility and a further expected by the end of the week from SpaceX.
HTA director Karen Stanton said the SpaceX approved supplier status had come about quickly as the company was very responsive to new technologies that were being offered by suppliers.
“Also because the particular platform in question isn't ‘human critical’, it's a little less intense in terms of the hoops we have to jump through,” she said. Stanton confirmed they had submitted multiple Requests for Quotations based on IP they could deliver.
SpaceX is particularly interested in HTA's vacuum brazing process, a particular type of furnace brazing, where vacuum is created in the furnace to allow the joining of metals providing cleaner and superior flux-free joints with higher strength and integrity.
“They're watching very closely to see we stand up that capability at our new LA facility,” Stanton said.
The company is taking advantage of the high demand for the process, with almost every aerospace prime requiring the ‘vac-braze’ capability which is still in limited supply. The ramp up in F-35 production isn't helping this situation either.
“The industry is going to see a tightening of supply because the numbers of vacuum-brazed chassis they are requiring is ramping up quickly.”
Because of the quality requirements for aerospace contracts, many Australian companies supplying big US primes like Boeing and Lockheed Martin are restricted to obtaining the raw materials for their components from the US.
“A lot of their supply comes from southern California, so our customers there are now supplying the Australian market. We've already seen work flowing through our facility for Australian companies supplying for Boeing and also for the F-35 program.”
Stanton added although that arm of the company was registered in the US, HTA's transfer pricing and IP agreements meant its profits were flowing back to Australia.
The Government's Global Supply Chain program had been critical to the company's US success, according to Stanton.
“An Australian company like ours in southern California would find it extremely difficult to get the attention of the primes. The industry is fairly well developed, there is already a good supply of what we do. When you get into a mature industry it's tough to get a foot in the door – Americans aren't generally aware of our reputation as niche innovators, they're actually quite shocked when they see what we're capable of.”
“If we didn't have Global Supply Chain, we wouldn't have Lockheed, we wouldn't have Boeing”, she said. Many of the companies we deal with over there are really mature and have been incumbent for so long – in our business of heat treatment they can't remember the last time they saw a new market entrant because it's high capital, with high barriers to entry with the quality and prime accreditations.”
For more information on the CDIC Global Supply Chain program check here.