This week, Pratt & Whitney announced a new 93,000 square-foot manufacturing facility at the company's AutoAir campus in Lansing, Michigan. The campus, which is made up of five plants, is already responsible for MRO services on nacelle composite parts, as well as designing and manufacturing test equipment, but this new building will be dedicated to making fan blades.
According to Shane Eddy, VP of Operations, the move is part of the company's $97 million investment in making fan blades for the PurePower Geared Turbofan (GTF) engines in Michigan. The GTF engines are currently in service on more than 80 aircraft. They are particularly notable for having a 16% reduction in fuel consumption, as well as a 75% reduction in noise.
While some employees remember when this operation was little more than five people in the corner of a building, the company says that it has experienced a tenfold ramp up in about a 20-month period. This includes many new jobs in Michigan. For example, the campus had 218 employees as of September 2015, and the company recently hired number 696.
After the expansion, Pratt & Whitney expects to deliver 350 to 400 GTF engines by the end of 2017, which should help with the company's backlog of more than 8,000 engines.