Deeply rooted in our heritage

Find out how three of our original internal suppliers have survived
and remained successful throughout the past five decades.

By Anne Wiskerchen

The 1950s were a special time in history. Elvis Presley and rock 'n' roll were changing the face of a generation; the race to space between the United States and Russia was intensifying; and Hollywood was in its "Golden Age", releasing films destined to become classics.

The manner in which radio waves were received also was being altered, thanks to the creation of one small filter produced by a business in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, known then as Collins Radio Company.

Renowned visionary and company founder Arthur Collins felt there was tremendous potential across the electronics industry for High Frequency (HF) Single-Sideband (SSB) radios. The challenge for this young entrepreneur was to develop technology that would make the radio practical.

His solution – a mechanical filter – not only secured our company's reputation for quality and innovation, but also spurred the creation of Collins Filter Products, an internal filter supplier responsible for creating a steady stream of inputs and ensuring consistency and
quality in our final product.

Also referred to as a vertical business model, this internal supplier model was replicated for many of our components. Fifty years later, three of our company's original internal suppliers are still thriving: Rockwell Collins Filter Products, Rockwell Collins Printed Circuits and Rockwell Collins Fabrication Operations.

Although they hold a unique position as a company inside of what we know today as Rockwell Collins, each of these businesses is deeply rooted in our heritage.

"We are the original Collins Radio Company through and through," said Don Havens, business director for Rockwell Collins Filter Products in Tustin, Calif. "That's what drives us, maybe more than other parts of our company. We all have our roots in the original Collins heritage."

Rockwell Collins Filter Products

Survive or disappear isn't a typical business motto, but this phrase resonates well with employees at Rockwell Collins Filter Products. Each year, the business, along with our other internal suppliers, must decide whether they are profitable enough to continue producing products for another year.

"Fifty years ago, it was the goal of many industries in the United States to be completely vertically integrated," said Havens, who was hired into the former Collins Radio Company as a crystal filter engineer in 1972. "Except for steel and tires, General Motors made almost all of its own parts. Today, General Motors buys most of its parts and even outsources some assembly operations. Why and how component sources like Rockwell Collins Filter Products survived is a great story."

This quest for sustainability and survival began in the 1980s, when microwave links containing mechanical filters were the primary means for long distance phone transmission. However, when Sprint introduced the nation's first all digital, fiber optic network, Filter Products lost about 60 percent of its business.

As a result, Filter Products had to control its own financial destiny in the 1980s and 1990s. According to Havens, the business tried to save money by renting out building space to other internal and external businesses and doing its own maintenance in order to stay alive.

"The key to our survival is keeping costs low and being a profitable and integral part of our company," said Havens, who at the time worked in our Costa Mesa facility. "During this time, every employee became a generalist. One morning I would work in engineering, and in the afternoon, I would check the rain gutters."

Employees not only made sure the products we sold were built and shipped on time, they also ensured that the grass was mowed, sprinklers worked and light bulbs were changed.

Today, keeping costs low is still imperative, but the business is more fully integrated in our company's processes and functions. A team of six employees now located in Tustin, Calif., and 12 employees in Mexicali, Mexico, make up the entire Filter Products business. They cater to a mixed audience of internal and external customers who depend on the cost effective analog radios our filters support.

"No matter what challenges we have faced, there have always been the two main themes that guide our business and our enterprise – customer satisfaction and quality," said Havens.

Rockwell Collins Printed Circuits

It isn't easy to picture how a single piece of copper can be transformed into the basis for some of the most highly sophisticated technology our company creates, but that's what the 140 employees who work at Rockwell Collins Printed Circuits (CPC) do each day.

April Dietrich is one of those employees. Although she has had a variety of jobs at Rockwell Collins during the past 25 years, she never realized how important our printed circuits are until she began working in that particular business area.

"I've been lucky enough to work on our products at many different stages of development," said Dietrich. "But little did I know that one day I would be building a key component for many of our products."

Dietrich works in the CPC plating shop, where she runs production lines that prepare and etch the copper. She believes one of the most important functions performed by CPC is supporting our company when other suppliers aren't able to meet our needs.

"Being part of Rockwell Collins' tradition of excellence, the expectations of our suppliers are extremely high," she said. "But CPC employees can help overcome any challenge our company might face."

CPC was formed in 1966, when Arthur Collins decided that building printed circuits should be one of our company's core competencies. Today, each step of the printed circuit process – from preparation of the raw copper to quality inspection – is completed in a 65,000- square-foot facility in Cedar Rapids.

Currently, about 85 percent of CPC's business consists of contracts that customers have directly with Rockwell Collins. The other 15 percent includes external customers in the defense and telecommunication industries. Just because CPC is part of Rockwell Collins, it doesn't mean the group automatically wins contracts. CPC must compete like each of our external suppliers, which adds both a challenge and an advantage to the bidding process.

"Rockwell Collins is a big company, so we're not necessarily as mobile or agile as some of the smaller suppliers," said CPC Director Dick Alexander.

However, he believes CPC's main advantage is its ability to connect on a real-time basis with internal customers and have goals reflected in a scorecard directly aligned with the enterprise scorecard.

"It's equally important for us to maintain the same trusted partnership with Rockwell Collins that our enterprise strives for with all customers," said Alexander.

Dan Greene agrees, and he plays an important role in keeping that relationship strong. A planar inspector, Greene joined our company 34 years ago, and he believes there is no project too great for the CPC team if the right tools are available.

"We do a lot of specialty work that many board shops in our industry don't do any more," said Greene. "I think everyone here enjoys supporting our enterprise."

Rockwell Collins Fabrication Operations

Although the Rockwell Collins Fabrication Operations business has been in place since shortly after Collins Radio Company began, the business has recently started a journey to market its expertise in sheet metal, aluminum and casting projects to the rest of our company.

"Our goal is to get to the point where our company's first thought will be to come to Fabrication Operations," said Dale Kepler, manager of Fabrication Operations in Cedar Rapids. "To accomplish this, our team is going back to our Lean Electronics fundamentals and listening to our customers."

Fabrications Operations differentiates itself from other suppliers by offering services directly to our engineering community. The businesses knowledge of production and manufacturing allows employees to become involved earlier, from a design-to-cost standpoint, to reduce our design and development cycle time.

"If we can help cut production costs before our products are built, it means reduced costs for our company and for our customers," said Kepler.

Fabrication Operations Machine Shop Manager Doug Wiebenga agrees.

"We understand manufacturing and the mechanical engineers understand design," said Wiebenga. "By working together early in the design phase, we can drive out costs whether Fabrication builds the parts or not."

Recently, employees in our Richardson, Texas, facility, were told by an external supplier that their design couldn't be built. To find a solution, engineers in Richardson turned the project over to our Fabrication Operations business.

"After working with one of our fabrication engineers for an afternoon, Richardson engineers had an updated design that met customer requirements and we were machining parts in a few days," said Wiebenga.

Benefits outweigh challenges

No matter what each of these suppliers provide, the one thing they all agree on is that the benefits far outweigh the challenges of being an internal supplier.

"We know we are both a service and a supplier to Rockwell Collins," said Kepler. "Luckily, we get the same leader communications and hear the business strategies and adjust our value stream and business plan to meet our company's needs."

This is important because it ensures that employees throughout the business are all working toward the same goal.

"If we don't get our product out on time, our company might miss a deadline," said Brad Marling, a sheet metal manager for Fabrication Operations. "When that's the case, we all lose. In the end, we all want Rockwell Collins to be successful."