Maintaining Time & Space

Conair Group is a private Canadian company that was formed back in 1969 by Barry Marsden and his partners under the name Conair Aviation Ltd. The company is now a world leader in aerial fire control systems and firefighting aircraft. In 2001, its third-party maintenance division became a separate entity and was re-named Cascade Aerospace Inc., becoming Canada newest transport-category heavy maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) provider.  

The name change helped differentiate Cascade from its parent company and coincided with its instalment in a brand new, state-of-the-art 230,000-square-foot facility at the Abbotsford International Airport, just across the field from Conair, and within walking distance of the British-Columbia/Washington state border. A customer-relations centre was later added in Ottawa, Ont., and a military support facility was placed at Canadian Forces Base Trenton, Ont.

I first visited Cascade back in 2001, meeting then-new president David Schellenberg, and touring an immaculate hangar that featured a number of innovative processes and support equipment designed to maximize staff efficiency. At the time, Cascade had acquired some structural maintenance contracts, carrying out the lap-joint repair program on a number of Boeing 737-200 and -300 aircraft. 

Ten years later, during a visit in August 2011, I found the core company operation had remained much the same, but many other aspects had changed, including the extensive military focus Cascade now had. One side of the eight-bay hangar was full of civilian aircraft: a B737, a Bombardier CL-215 and two Lockheed Martin L-100s (civil versions of the C-130) from different operators. The other side contained Royal Canadian Air Force C-130s in various stages of overhaul. 

The staff, meanwhile, had grown from 200 to over 650. The senior leadership team was still in place  with Marsden as board chair and Schellenberg as president and now also chief executive officer  but they’d been ably joined by retired brigadier-general Dwayne Lucas as executive vice-president and Justin Currie as chief operating officer.

Cascade is certified by Transport Canada as an approved maintenance organization, manufacturing organization, training organization and design approval organization. It is also a Canadian Department of National Defence (DND) accredited maintenance organization, and has United States Federal Aviation Administration approval (through bilateral agreements between Canada and the U.S.) and European Aviation Safety Agency 145.6026 approval. In a nutshell, Cascade has the ability and certifications to work on nearly any aircraft type in the world, but has focused largely on narrow-body airliners such as the B737 and C-130. The maintenance and modification services it provides for those ships include aircraft-on-ground support, component repair and overhaul, structural refurbishment, avionics and aircraft system upgrades, and field service support in the form of mobile repair teams and on-call technical and logistics support. 

In addition to MRO services, Cascade provides program management, including single-point accountability for projects and airworthiness management, and performance-based fleet management with engineering, material and maintenance planning. The engineering department, meanwhile, provides aircraft structural-integrity programs, design of modifications and repairs, and all the applicable ground and air testing. 

Integrated logistics is another specialty service, providing cradle-to-the-grave lifecycle management, reliability analysis and spares management. On the product side, Cascade-designed items include C-130J operations and maintenance trainers; custom interiors for carrying package freight for Bombardier Q400 and CRJ (Canadair Regional Jet) aircraft; specialized aircraft and system modification kits; aircraft conversions, such as upgrading the CL-215 to the CL-215T, a process of adding, among other things, Pratt & Whitney Canada PW123AF turbines; and avionic upgrades and structural modifications and improvements.

The majority of work at Cascade revolves around the C-130 Hercules. The company is a Lockheed Martin authorized C-130 service centre for B to H models, and is working toward becoming a C-130J heavy maintenance centre, with plans to become ranked as one of the top three C-130J world-class centres of excellence by 2013.

In an interview with Canadian Skies, president and CEO Schellenberg discussed the changes that have taken place at Cascade and the global and domestic challenges facing the company in the current economy. Schellenberg, who was scheduled to assume the position of board chair at the Aerospace Industry Association of Canada (AIAC) in November, is also a strong supporter of the Canadian aerospace sector. 

We see ourselves as a specialty aerospace and defence contractor. The company focuses on the more complex aircraft maintenance and modification programs, explained Schellenberg. Cascade started as an MRO and that is still part of our core service offering. We built our business around that, but have had success getting into more complex programs. The company has worked to build up its engineering and logistics programs and fleet management capabilities, and a significant amount of employee training has been provided in these areas. Cascade has diversified and its business is now half in the commercial world, while the other half focuses on aerospace and defence. 

I think another challenge in the global concept is that Canada is a relatively high-cost environment for labour, manufacturing and maintenance. We are not competitive with the typical meat-and-potatoes type of MRO that provides services to American carriers, particularly with the level of the Canadian dollar. Our focus is on higher-dollar, value-added service and Canadian customers. People won’t come to us because of price  when you come to Cascade, you get quality and [predictable time spans]. You will [also] get a breadth of capability that is not available at many U.S. MROs, and I think we handle complexity in an improved superior way. 

According to Schellenberg, customers such as WestJet believe that having a quality provider is important  so is having a very predictable time span for the work. These are the qualities that have helped it secure many military contracts, as well: Our core customer today is the Royal Canadian Air Force; we are very privileged to have them as our core client; they are an ideal customer and we have a great partnership. 

In 2005, Cascade won a contract to manage Canada fleet of 32 C-130 E and H model aircraft operated by the DND. This long-term major-refurbishment contract shifted Cascade business by allowing the company to branch out and become more than a commercial MRO. Then, in 2010, Cascade won a 20-year contract with Lockheed Martin to conduct maintenance and provide in-service support for Canada 17 new C-130J Super Hercules aircraft.

That balanced portfolio of commercial and defence contracts, explained Schellenberg, is a significant key to the company success. We are a defence contractor, an OEM [original equipment manufacturer] and a commercial-business MRO. There is a very healthy split between those segments. The key challenge has been to grow our key capabilities while focusing on our customers. 

Cascade approach is designed around customer-focused teams. Everything begins with the customer and there is accountability for every level of work. There are direct links from customers to the leaders, to middle management, to the floor. This philosophy has had a powerful impact on business. 

As for its people, Cascade has had a Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) unionized workforce for the past six years, and actively works with the union. Schellenberg said the company recognizes the benefits of bringing the CAW alongside as a partner, so the union knows what the business is planning. I feel we have a good crew here, with great relationships at the union and company-committee level. We constantly work together to improve these relationships, and a key part is the stability of our workforce. We want people to understand that Cascade is a great place to work, in a great location to raise a family.

A significant factor of the value-added service Cascade provides is the reduction in the time required to carry out specific maintenance visits, as well as a reduction in the number of maintenance visits themselves. And, in the few short years the company has been providing services for the C-130, Cascade has achieved some remarkable milestones. 

We have done well working with the DND contract, said Schellenberg, and have been winning performance awards for the past two-and-a-half years. In Canada C-130 program, the DND has a balanced scorecard maintenance measurement system that focuses on quality and work time spans. Cascade has been on the positive side of that scorecard for the past two-and-a-half years. 

Said Schellenberg: We have succeeded in drastically reducing the span times on the Hercules by up to 50 per cent. In fact, the original time to carry out a C-130 periodic maintenance check was 120 days; Cascade is now completing these in 60 days.

In one particular instance, the DND marked a fast turnaround on a bird-strike-damaged C-130 with a plaque presented to Cascade. Still, the company thinks it can do better. We are proud of this acknowledgement, but there is always room for improvement, commented Schellenberg. Cascade wants to achieve a higher level still. 

With three shifts, plus a weekend day shift, Cascade operates 24 hours a day/seven days a week. After all, customers with multi-million dollar assets don’t want to wait for maintenance work to be completed, and Schellenberg said the company already large workforce of about 650 could grow larger still, based on the launch of new programs. 

At the moment, its principle customers include operators  such as the DND, Lynden Air Cargo, First Air, WestJet and CanJet  and a number of key Canadian aerospace companies, such as CAE, Bombardier, Viking Air and YXX Aerospace. 

Cascade is also currently working with the governments of Alberta and Saskatchewan, after signing a multi-year program to convert CL-215s to CL-215Ts with Bombardier kit and Pratt & Whitney Canada turbine engines. Three aircraft have already been delivered, two to Alberta and one to Saskatchewan, and initial feedback has indicated the new turboprops are meeting or exceeding expectations. There is a long life ahead for the CL-215Ts, as they, along with their sister CL-415s, are currently among the premier water-bomber aircraft in the world  which greatly benefits Cascade, as it is the only company certified by Bombardier to carry out the CL-215 conversions.

Of course, the military sector continues to hold promise for Cascade future, as well. 

We are focusing on any new Canadian Air Force program, such as the fixed-wing SAR [see p.50, this issue] and new UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle], said Schellenberg. I think Cascade is in a good position to bid on those. A possible candidate for the SAR program could be the C-130  this aircraft availability has gone up significantly. The aircraft are well maintained and could be the backbone of the SAR [search and rescue] program, as well as other missions for many years to come; this is including the older ones, as well as the new J models. The H models still have lots of life left in them and can still provide a lot of value to Canada. 

Overall, Cascade CEO said the aerospace industry is in a decent place today, globally and domestically. Canada has a very strong aerospace pedigree, he explained. We have the fifth-largest aerospace industry in the world, with approximately 80,000 jobs. And [globally], when you look at what happening with manufacturers such as Airbus, Boeing, and, of course, Bombardier, there are a ton of new airplanes coming. Within the next 20 years there will be 30,000 new airplanes, around $4 trillion worth of airplanes. Canada has a key piece of that growth. Yes, it is affected by the economy, but it is a global industry. The key message is that aerospace in Canada is a good, solid house-buying kind of industry.

In just 10 short years since my first visit, Cascade has built its own very strong and diverse house, and become a great example of why the Canadian industry is considered so solid.