After less than three years as a stand-alone company, MD Helicopters Inc. (MDHI) has doubled its workforce to more than 400 and expects revenues of at least $150 million this year. Since being sold to Dutch industrial conglomerate RDM Technology Holding, the former Boeing civil helicopter business has become a company far different from the small commercial operation of a large military helicopter firm, itself a minor component of an immense aerospace corporation.
Freed from a cumbersome corporate bureaucracy and the burden of overhead costs shared with the military product line, MDHI has become a more productive, market-oriented operation focused on assembling its current helicopter line as quickly, efficiently and cost effectively as possible. Now enjoying short lines of decision-making, the Mesa, Ariz. company has adopted a number of innovations, most notably that of doing at least 95 percent of its new helicopter completion work in-house.
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