RAPTOR SUPPLIERS SEE RESULT OF EFFORTS LOCKHEED OFFERS HANDS-ON TUTORIAL.

Byline: Gregory J. Wilcox Staff Writer

VALENCIA - Todd Taylor has made aircraft landing gear components for seven years, but it wasn't until this week that he received some hands-on experience on how his efforts affect national defense.

Taylor and other EFS Aerospace Inc. employees spent time in the flight simulator for the Lockheed Martin Corp. F-22A Raptor, the U.S. Air Force's next-generation fighter jet. He also got a tutorial on how the avionics and weapons systems work from company test pilot Randy Neville.

Lockheed Martin officials visited EFS as part of the Marietta, Ga.-based company's mission to better know its contract partners and reduce costs.

To that end, officials from the nonprofit California Manufacturing Technology Center set up flow charts to demonstrate how EFS plans to improve product flow, which should ultimately result in more sales.

The F-22 project will spread an estimated $11 billion across California during the production run of 339 jets, each with a sticker price of $99.7 million. A lot of that money will come to the Los Angeles area, where there are 250 companies of 300 statewide working on the project.

That's why cost cutting is important, and why EFS, a unit of Wayne, Pa.-based Triumph Group Inc. that generates about $25 million in sales and has 165 employees, is embracing the technology center's lean enterprise services.

Company President Richard W. Fritch said that this concept is especially critical because about 70 percent of sales are to commercial customers and the balance to the military. The commercial sector tanked after last year's terrorists attacks, and Fritch does not expect it to bounce back for a while.

``Lean manufacturing is something that everybody is going to have to embrace. If you don't embrace it you won't remain cost-competitive,'' he said.

For example, last year the technology center helped California companies increase or retain $219 million in sales and save $36 million through improved efficiencies.

Technology center consultant Jim Gilbert began working with EFS in late September and is helping the company rework its manufacturing process, now spread among four buildings. Currently it takes from four to five weeks for EFS to make a landing gear part, which travels about two miles back and forth between work stations.

The center came up with a U-shaped manufacturing line that will cut the travel distance to about 100 feet and result in a production time of about five days, Gilbert said.

``That can result in lower prices, that results in more sales and that results in more profits and jobs. It's how we grow the business,'' Gilbert said.

It also makes for better working conditions for employees like Taylor, a Palmdale resident who now has a supervisory position at the company. He was impressed by the center's efforts and especially with how EFS landing gear components are being used by the military.

``It means a lot to us to see it work, and talk to the people that use it,'' he said of the fighter jet itself. ``It makes you proud.''

The Raptor is the world's most advanced fighter aircraft and will be the first day-night, all-weather, stealthy jet capable of multiple missions. It will fly higher, faster and farther than any military craft in use today.

It can attack targets by itself that today require the use of multiple aircraft, said Dick Mather, a Lockheed Martin business development executive.

For example, the fighter is able to shoot down four enemy planes while still well out of their radar range and is able to cruise at Mach 1.2 without the use of its afterburner.

And test pilot Neville says that pilots love the jet.

``Despite its complexity, it is very easy to fly,'' he said.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color; 2 ran in Business only) Above, EFS Aerospace employee Rudy Zuniga gets behind the controls of an F-22 simulator as Lockheed Martin expert Dick Mather offers pointers. At left, Controls of the F22 Raptor simulator show some of the aircraft's state-of-the-art monitors and displays.

(3 -- color -- ran in Business only) EFS Aerospace engineer Kent Myers launches a missile while behind the controls of an F22 raptor simulator as Lockheed Martin expert Dick Mather watches.

John Lazar/Staff Photographer