How GE Aerospace Facilities Expanded Through Growth Strategies in Greenville, South Carolina

In 2004, GE Aerospace was facing a challenge every company hopes for: massive growth. The GE90-115B, which entered service that year aboard the Boeing 777-300ER, was embarking on one of the most successful service entries ever for a high-thrust jet engine. Meanwhile, the new GEnx had just been selected to power Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner and was about to become the fastest-selling high-thrust engine in GE Aerospace history.

But before it began boosting engine production, the company knew it had to clear some manufacturing bottlenecks. For instance, at that time, most of GE Aerospace’s commercial turbine blades — highly complex parts that power the engine’s fan — were made at a single plant in Madisonville, Kentucky. As demand intensified, the blade business needed to scale along with it. 

So the company cleared 50,000 square feet of floor space at a GE Power manufacturing facility in Greenville, South Carolina, to make room for the overflow. On July 12, 2004, the Greenville blade operation opened for business, starting with a single production line run by some 40 employees. 

Fast-forward two decades and Greenville is one of the highest-revenue sites at GE Aerospace. In the intervening years, Greenville’s team-driven workforce has steered the plant through ramp-ups and shutdowns, adapting and revamping in the constant quest to deliver the highest quality at the highest volume. The plant now produces turbine blades for each of GE Aerospace’s commercial engines — churning out more than 7,000 blades a week — and it’s the sole blade manufacturer for the GE90 and GE9X jet engines. Blades for the CFM LEAP engine, produced by CFM International, a 50-50 joint company between GE Aerospace and Safran Aircraft Engines, make up a significant — and growing — segment of the plant’s output as well.

In July, the Greenville team gathered on the grounds to celebrate 20 years of service to GE Aerospace and its customers. After swapping stories and enjoying refreshments, the attendees paused to watch a congratulatory message, sent via video, from GE Aerospace Chairman and CEO Larry Culp. “From the very first time I set foot in the Greenville facility, I knew you would be a leading example for our company,” he said. “Today is an important reminder of everything you have accomplished together. You all have risen to the occasion, embedding that continuous improvement mindset in what you do day in and day out.” 

Building a Culture for Growth and Expansion Strategies

The plant’s achievements stem in large part from a management approach called teaming, in which a self-directed workforce helps run every aspect of the operation. Greenville adopted teaming from its earliest days, but with a unique spin: To prepare for surges in orders, each machine operator in Greenville can run every process — from electrical discharge machining to shot peening — on every product line, and they rotate duties every day. 

“Their versatility is a tremendous asset,” says Tim McQueen, GE Aerospace’s general manager for component repair sites, who managed the plant from 2017 to 2021. “We can allocate our teams to respond to shifts in demand. The culture of the shop is to go where they can benefit the customer most.”

That flexibility results from the continuous training of an already expert workforce. The technicians are composed of certified machinists and Level 2-certified non-destructive testing inspectors, and many have post-secondary degrees; when they arrive at Greenville, they complete rigorous training that immerses them in the technical aspects of the job as well as the teaming culture. The trainers are responsible for making sure rookies become proficient in every operation, and that veterans maintain their skills while learning new processes.

Their expertise has helped the plant stay a step ahead when the aviation market fluctuates. In 2009, even amid an industry downturn, the operation employed 140 people and manufactured 350,000 blades a year — a level of productivity GE Aerospace leaders credited to the teaming culture. By April 2010 the team had outgrown its corner of the GE Power facility, so the company moved the blade operation to its own dedicated building across town. Triple the size of the original footprint, the new plant had room to add another 100 employees and $30 million in equipment over the next three years. 

Changing the Game Through Further Growth

In 2019, Greenville’s operations were again being pushed to the limits. CFM International was preparing to boost production of its LEAP engine to the highest rate ever for a turbofan. And aftermarket orders for the CFM56, already the best-selling jet engine in history, kept rolling in. The site’s leaders decided to use lean, the management philosophy at the heart of the company’s turnaround, to get the most out of the space. Lean’s core purpose is to eliminate waste. For Greenville this required “a mindset shift,” McQueen says. “How can we always be ready for growth?”

Just as they were beginning to answer that question, COVID shut the plant down for two months. The staff used the downtime to overhaul the facility’s physical layout and their daily routines. Meeting over Zoom, McQueen and the teams developed new strategies for time management, communication, and clearing bottlenecks. By the time the full team returned in early 2021, they had rearranged every piece of equipment in the shop. 

“We standardized the layouts and the work sequencing among all the product lines,” McQueen says. “One line looks similar, if not identical, to the others. That way, if someone moves from GEnx to GE90 or CFM56 or LEAP, they can easily run those processes as well.”

As a force multiplier, the shop has adopted innovative technologies, such as complex machining and upgraded lasers, that streamline individual tasks. With their training and experience, the teams adjust quickly to new equipment and provide invaluable feedback on where innovation is needed most. To give the shop a more prominent voice in the design process, the plant recently assembled an in-house team of engineers and technicians who collaborate to implement new production lines. 

“It completely changed the game,” McQueen says. “The engineering and product teams are much better aligned with the shop. They depend on that support to make each other successful. That’s the strength of the culture of collaboration.”

The transformation has culminated in the production line for the next-generation LEAP blade, set to go into service this year. Drawing on everything the staff has learned in the past five years, the LEAP line weds lean principles with advanced technologies. And the CFM production line, Greenville’s legacy blade, is now reaching yield rates up to 98.5%. 

These gains are possible in part because many of the employees who originated the teaming culture at Greenville — those first 2004 hires — still work at the plant. Employee attrition hovers well below 1%. As the company looks forward to more growth, that stability ensures that skills mastered and lessons learned on the shop floor endure. It’s also a testament to the dedication of the plant’s workforce.

Elevating the Journey with GE Aerospace’s Vision

When GE Aerospace officially launched as an independent public company in April, it was as if a starting pistol had sounded a new era inside the plant. “I don’t think we’d be the shop we are without being visionary enough to know there is still more to do,” says Chris Ubillus, Greenville’s plant leader. 

Ubillus points to the rollout of FLIGHT DECK, the company’s proprietary lean operating model, as a catalyst for positive change within the plant and for the customers it serves. “FLIGHT DECK came at a time when we needed connectivity — from the top down and bottom up,” he says. “And in the spirit of continuous improvement, we knew that teaming wasn’t the ceiling for our culture.”

Greenville faces an unprecedented ramp ahead, with massive growth forecasted in the number of blades it must produce. The challenge, as Ubillus sees it, is to “grow without growing” — to increase the team’s capacity to deliver to customers with minimal, if any, expenditure. To meet this challenge, the plant’s culture committee — made up of machine operators, lean leaders, human resources leaders, and Ubillus — has devised a road map that promotes education, develops daily management systems among teams, and uses the plant’s obeya, or “Big Room,” to illustrate how “respect for people” is integrated through Greenville’s entire operating system.

“This way, the team will know our company’s vision, how Greenville fits in, and the deployment of our strategy through our KPIs, daily management, and problem-solving,” Ubillus says. “Given our site’s multi-year transformation, I feel like we really have a head start in FLIGHT DECK.” 

As Ubillus notes, celebrating the site’s 20th anniversary gave the entire team “the opportunity to zoom out and remember where it all started.” Like many shops across the GE Aerospace supply chain, they see a bright future ahead.