Ascent Aerospace collects trio of supplier-excellence awards

Ascent Tooling Group, the largest tooling business in aerospace, was recognized with three supplier-excellence awards, one for each company in the group. Odyssey Industries (Lake Orion, Michigan) and Coast Composites (Santa Ana, California) were individually recognized with 2014 Silver Boeing Performance Excellence Awards. Global Tooling Systems (Macomb, Michigan) was recognized by Lockheed Martin Aeronautics for "100% on-time delivery and zero quality defects" for all tools delivered in 2014.

"These awards reflect the commitment of our team towards meeting customer requirements. I want to thank every employee at Coast, Odyssey and GTS for their personal contributions toward achieving excellence," stated Paul Walsh, the Group's President and COO. "These awards also underscore the success of our continuous improvement efforts. Through collaboration and synergistic support, Ascent Tooling Group has advanced quality, program management and operational excellence across all three businesses. All of our customers benefit from these advances."

The three companies have shared leadership and best practices since they were purchased by American Industrial Partners in 2012. In that time, significant emphasis has been placed on capacity loading across the Group. By sharing work when one business faces a capacity challenge, all three businesses have seen an increase in on-time delivery, a key metric in supplier performance rating. Employee exchange across Ascent Tooling Group is also credited with propagating best practices and innovations without the top-down implementation that can lead to rigid or poorly-fit procedures. The businesses transfer expertise while remaining nimble in process, culture and execution.