Barely a month has passed since what formerly traded as Smiths Aerospace formally became General Electric Aviation Systems at the closing of the U.S. engine maker’s $4.8 billion acquisition of the business. But according to the new division’s president, Dr. John Ferrie, the new partners don’t have time to sit around chatting over future strategy; they’re too busy working on high-gear programs and advancing their prospective roles on several future platforms.
“There is no great overlay between what the companies do and the systems business will essentially continue as it is with no real physical integration [with General Electric Aero Engines],” Ferrie told Aviation International News last week. Former Smiths executives and their new GE colleagues have been told plainly that there is no time to be lost with protracted internal dialog and that the show must go on, albeit with an increasingly “common face” being shown to the customer despite the markedly different business models that support the way aircraft engines and systems are purchased.
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