Collins Aerospace opens AM centre, expands MRO capabilities
Collins Aerospace, headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA, has announced the opening of a new Additive Manufacturing centre and the expansion of its maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) capabilities at its campus in Monroe, North Carolina. The company completed a $30 million expansion of the site in 2021 and has since invested $15 million as part of the Monroe City Council and Union County Board of Commissioners MAGNET100 economic development incentive programme.
Thus far, Collins’ new Additive Manufacturing centre includes two Additive Manufacturing machines with plans to add more in the future. The new facility will join the company’s existing global network of Additive Manufacturing production centres in US states in Iowa & Minnesota and Singapore, and Additive Manufacturing research centres in Connecticut, US, and Poland, to support the next generation of aircraft with state-of-the-art machines and optimised designs.
As a provider of MRO services for aircraft systems, Collins maintains a worldwide network of seventy-five MRO sites to serve its global customer base. Opened in 2004, Collins’ 14,864 m2 Monroe MRO facility serves over 300 customers across the aerospace and defence industry. The site repairs more than 6,500 unique part numbers for commercial and military aircraft — including actuation systems, helicopter rescue hoists and air management systems — and provides aircraft-on-the-ground services.
Through its investments in the site, Collins has added new advanced manufacturing equipment in an effort to streamline operations, improve quality control and enhance employee safety. Collins has also increased the size of Monroe’s workforce, bringing on more than seventy new employees in the past year, and is continuing to hire for additional openings.
“Our Monroe site is one of Collins’ largest MRO facilities in the world, and the repairs we provide are essential to keeping our airline and military customers’ aircraft in service,” stated Mary DeStaffan, Monroe site general manager for Collins Aerospace. “We’re proud to call Monroe home, to continue to invest and grow in the community here, and to support the region’s growing aerospace cluster.”
