Northwest - Hydraulic Pump

Northwest A330 Engine Driven Hydraulic Pump - Creating Customer Loyalty through Exceptional Customer Service

Background

The original A330 aircraft introduced into airline service in 1994 was the most technically advanced commercial aircraft at that time. To continue to meet the growing expectations of their airline customers, in 2001 Airbus identified several major upgrades to the A330 to meet these performance expectations and with the embodiment of these upgrades introduced the enhanced version of the A330 aircraft. As part of the enhancement project, Eaton’s Aerospace Operations introduced an improved version of its engine driven hydraulic pumps which are fitted on each of the two aircraft’s engines. Each of these pumps supply hydraulic power to three systems that power critical aircraft functions such as the landing gear, flight controls and various utility systems. The new pumps offered lower weight, improved performance, higher reliability and improved life cycle cost as compared to the original Eaton offering. 

Challenges

In 2006 after two years of operating the A330 aircraft, NWA reported several unscheduled pump removals. Investigations by Eaton identified two previously unidentified failure modes within the new pump design. These findings were reported to Northwest and Airbus followed by the establishment of a formal investigation and monitoring program led by Eaton. As some additional failures occurred, Eaton responded by delivering additional spare pumps to insure the customer had adequate spares to support aircraft operations with the increased removal rate.  These were provided on a free-of-charge loan basis until investigations and corrective actions were defined. In addition, the technical team composed of representatives from Eaton, Airbus and Northwest identified symptoms of the two failure modes and established a real time on aircraft monitoring program. The monitoring program was successful in identifying impending failures and allowing NWA to schedule pump removals thereby mitigating the risk of flight delays and cancellations, which would have cost the airline in excess of $150,000 per event.

Solution

Through a focused team, again including Airbus, NWA and Eaton the investigation resulted in defining the root cause of the failures. The team took on a truly global flavor with NWA representatives from USA,  Eaton representatives from the USA and UK, Airbus representatives from France and Germany all worked together to solve the problems that NWA were experiencing. The team identified an incompatibility between the aircraft hydraulic system and the hydraulic pump that resulted in high-pressure pulsations in the control circuit of the pump causing premature pump failures. Several design changes were identified to tune the product to the total hydraulic system(s) to eliminate the failure modes. Since the product is used on two different aircraft types and supplies power in three different systems on each aircraft with four different engine types, plus the fact the aircraft is operated by both long and short haul operators, the challenge was to make the pump completely compatible and reliable in 14 different operating scenarios.

All options were evaluated and the optimal solutions were identified, selected and validated through a battery of laboratory, iron bird and aircraft tests. The design changes were approved through the extensive aviation regulatory requirements on a very compressed schedule to bring a final solution to the customer.  A scheduled upgrade program was negotiated with NWA and a joint supplier-customer team was established to manage and execute the upgrade program to minimize any operational impact or additional cost to NWA. The new pump is now basic on the A330 aircraft and is successfully flying with several other airlines.

At the NWA supplier meeting in March 2007, with 100 of their top suppliers in attendance, Tim Johnson, NWA's Director of Technical Commodity Management, recognized Eaton for taking ownership and managing the A330 pump situation to mitigate the immediate operational impact to NWA and partnering with NWA and Airbus to define the most manageable and cost effective solution. This was viewed by NWA as being benchmark performance by a supplier. Based on the success of the A330 pump program, NWA identified several other opportunities where Eaton could address reliability issues and support for other products. 

During a recent interview with Dale Wilkinson, Vice President of  Purchasing and Contracts/Materials Management for NWA, he was asked how does a supplier turn around a bad situation and regain customer trust and confidence?  Dale showcased the A330 hydraulic pump reliability problem. NWA started experiencing significant aircraft operational delays and cancellations due to a rash of pump failures. Eaton stepped up, took ownership of the problem, provided additional spares to cover the higher pipeline demand, managed the investigations, identified a solution and implemented corrective action. This was achieved in a very timely and effective manner that minimized impact to NWA. This exceptional customer service quickly turned around a bad situation and NWA will never forget how Eaton handled the problem.

By meeting and exceeding the customer’s expectations Eaton created customer loyalty whereby the customer looks to Eaton first when they have product or service requirements.