GE Aviation exec planned plant for years

Scott Ernest supervises 80 GE Aviation plants worldwide, but the newest, in Greenville’s Matrix Industrial Park, is one of just five that are team-driven to the extent this one is.

“We are producing the highest technology product that GE Aviation makes,” Ernest, the GE Aviation vice president and general manager, supply chain, said at the plant’s grand opening Monday. “And GE is committed to making this product in South Carolina.”

Brad Brougher, plant leader at the Greenville Airfoils Facility, added that the blades, which typically measure 4 to 5 inches in length and weigh about a pound, are “one of the most difficult parts of a jet engine to make.”

GE Aviation officials have said that the team management system, in which the manufacturing employees have a large role in designing and managing the manufacturing process, has contributed substantially to high productivity at the airfoils plant as it outgrew its first location within Greenville’s GE Energy plant.

The airfoils plant, which has 140 employees today and aims to add 100 more over the next three years, is producing at a rate of 350,000 turbine blades per year. GE has invested $60 million to get into the first phase of the 150,000-square-foot facility off U.S. Highway 25. The high-pressure turbine blades made there go into commercial aircraft engines that power many Airbus and Boeing aircraft, including the 787 Dreamliner that will be built in North Charleston.

The expansion over the next three years will include an additional investment of $30 million for facilities and new equipment.

The new technologies used at the Matrix Park facility will enable GE Aviation to reduce production time for turbine blades by 50%, from about 15 days to one week, and boost the plant’s product capacity, Ernest said. He said the productivity boost will help the site handle volume growth that is expected to increase by 40% at the Greenville plant this year.

Ernest has been involved in development of the Greenville Airfoils Facility from it conception six years ago, to the selection of Greenville for its location, to moving it into its own dedicated plant.

The initial set-up for the plant was accomplished in 50,000 square feet of space at the Garlington Road plant. Now, GE Aviation has its own location that will allow it to grow even more, Ernest said.

“When you think about a jet engine, you must have the highest quality, and we do that every day here,” Ernest said.

Gov. Mark Sanford, who attended the grand opening, noted that “investment drives the ability of people to put more on the kitchen table,” and thanked GE for deciding to locate the plant in South Carolina.

He noted the connection between the engines GE Aviation will build to be installed on Boeing jets in North Charleston, and said, “The Dreamliner is a real revolution in the use of composite materials, and you are a real part of that revolution.”