Pratt & Whitney Power Systems has seen its non-OEM parts business grow significantly over
the past few years, to a point where industrial gas turbine component repairs and manufacturing have utilized all of the capacity of its San Antonio, Texas, U.S.A., facility.
IGT Parts, Repairs Grow
for Pratt & Whitney
Power Systems
Very few, if any, gas turbine operators have unlimited budgets for ongoing maintenance for their machines.
There are no blank checks when it
comes to purchasing parts and services.
Therefore, many operators turn to non-OEM parts suppliers as an alternative
to going “factory direct.” And while it
might not be true across the board,
most non-OEM suppliers are able to
sell at a price advantage compared to
the OEM. It is also true that in some
cases these non-OEM components —
typically hot section parts — have been
re-engineered to higher specifications
than the original parts, whether these
refinements are in part profiles, cooling
schemes or thermal barrier coatings.
This scenario has led most of the gas
turbine OEMs into the supply of components beyond those required for their
own machines. Whether this non-OEM
parts business has been grown organically or via acquisition, the gas turbine
OEMs are now competing in the after-
market business as well, as both parts
suppliers and service providers.
Pratt & Whitney Power Systems
(PWPS) embarked on its mission to
manufacture and repair industrial gas
turbine (IGT) components several
years ago and has witnessed almost
exponential growth in the area over the
past two to three years, according to
Steve Hilton, IGT parts manager for the
company’s aftermarket business in
Windsor, Connecticut, U.S.A. “Our
original business initiative was under-taken because there’s such a large IGT
potential in the marketplace.”
The company’s San Antonio, Texas,
U.S.A.-based IGT repair center has
grown into one of the large industrial
gas turbine industry’s leading centers
for component maintenance and repairs, including high temperature
single crystal, directionally solidified
and equiax alloys, as well as other
advanced materials and coatings,
Hilton said.
Hilton indicated that PWPS’s combined IGT parts and repairs business
grew by triple digits from 2005 to 2006.
From an initial offering of two parts, the
company now offers 15 — primarily
blades and vanes — and is expanding
its range on a continuous basis. What
military engine work that was being
done in the San Antonio facility is being
transitioned out over the course of this
year so that the facility can allow extra
space for the expanding IGT business.
PWPS attributes much of this repair
and new component growth to its ability to use the company’s aerospace
design engineers who support continual advancements in aerospace and IGT
engine repair technology. “We have a
good understanding of the parts design
because we have redesigned the parts
to Pratt & Whitney’s aerospace quality
standards, also taking lessons learned
from the repair side of how to enhance
the part design to address field service
and distress issues,” Hilton said.
“We’re putting aerospace quality into
both the hardware and the repair philosophy,” he said. “There’s a lot of synergy between San Antonio and our
design team.
“The engineers that we use on the re-engineering are utilized from our turbine module center, which is one of the
main module centers of Pratt &
Whitney. The engineering staff, which
has an aerospace background, is used
for our re-engineering efforts,” Hilton
said. “There is also a standard work
process that engineering goes through
in order to take the part, review it, evaluate its pros and cons. Then we utilize
the lessons learned out of the repair
group in San Antonio, plus customer
reaction in field experience, on how to
enhance the part in the redesign.”
In the upcoming years Hilton envisions further growth for PWPS’s IGT
repair and replacement parts business
as many gas turbine operators potentially consider leaving their long-term
service agreements with the gas turbine
OEMs. “Early on, a lot of potential customers had long-term service agreements in place anyway so there wasn’t
much we could probably do for that
duration. Big opportunities will contin-
