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Flying Colours Corp. has confirmed the appointment of Dave Stewart as vice president and general manager of Flying Colours KSUS, its St Louis, Mo., U.S.-based facility.
Stewart is already working on implementing growth plans which will increase the workforce, and extend the facility’s footprint, to underpin further business development.
In response to increased demand for green and executive aircraft completions, cabin refurbishments and maintenance overhauls, Stewart is also recruiting a selection of specialist engineers, including a stress engineer to bolster the design engineering team, and a designated engineering representative (DER), who will be responsible for recommending the approval of technical data to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on behalf of Flying Colours.
The production and maintenance team will be expanded to support the growing number of client projects passing through the facility, in addition to supporting work at the head facility in Peterborough, Ont.
As an expert in manufacturing process, Stewart will further strengthen the lean manufacturing and management processes across all aspects of the Flying Colours KSUS organization from administration, to production and maintenance.
He is well positioned to do this, having first worked as a lean manufacturing consultant for a two- year period at Flying Colours’ Peterborough site in 2008. Through the introduction of these specific efficiency improving, and waste reduction working methods, Stewart helped transform the business output at the company’s Canadian headquarters.
In addition, he led several internal Kaizen projects at Flying Colours, which involved the whole company improving productivity, from senior management to hands on technicians. Subsequently Stewart took up a full-time role with the business as director of operations in 2010. Prior to this he ran his own lean consultancy business, having spent over a decade working at Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada.
“This is an exciting time for Flying Colours, St Louis. We have built a solid reputation and this is a great platform from which to develop. We are close to maximum capacity so need to grow our workforce, and expand our facility, to ensure we can welcome an increased range of aircraft types up to narrow body in size. Applying my experience from the aviation and automotive industries I plan to ensure we maintain our standards and high quality, whilst developing existing and new revenue streams,” says Dave about his role.
“Having someone of Dave’s caliber running our St. Louis operation is essential for Flying Colours. We have already implemented lean processes but with his understanding of the concepts, and of Flying Colours, he’s the ideal candidate to take the facility and our business to the next level. His guidance so far has been a major contributor in KSUS being awarded the Authorized Service Facility Excellence Award in the North American category by Bombardier Business Aircraft. We expect great things from Dave in the future,” added Sean Gillespie, executive vice president, Flying Colours Corp.
Flying Colours Corp. KSUS mirrors the services offered at Peterborough offering a full range of maintenance, repair and overhaul completions, avionics, heavy maintenance, component repairs, engineering and design services.
