Customary-focused recovery

On February 17, 2025, SPS Jenkintown, a manufacturing site for Precision Castparts Corporation, one of the largest and most significant factories in the Aerospace Fastener industry, burnt to the ground in a disaster that would create ripples globally. This is a story of humanity, teamwork and linking arms to drive recovery at a speed that enabled customer operational continuity. As the team gathered in Philadelphia on February 19, they did not know the monumental task they would undertake and succeed at in the next three months.

This session will explore:

• The first 48 hours of the Jenkintown disaster: How the team gathered, recognized one another as humans effected by a tragedy and started to sort through the unsortable, physically and figuratively. It is at this time that some of the most significant customers came to the table with real support and tangible empathy.
• Quantification of the issue (how critical, how much and when): How the work was categorized into buckets according to functional responsibilities with a full-focus on customer needs. By creating categories of critical, single/soul-sourced and customer spec, the team was able to focus on the most important parts and quickly make a plan to meet customer needs.
• Mapping our way with system part paths: Where parts were made under one roof previously, the team must now form out of disparate and sometimes competing P&L organizations, to form the parts. In an unnatural act of extreme teamwork, the PCC Fasteners functional leadership meets to map parts and processes across the full organizational and operational system.
• Raw material complexities (more than just shipping titanium): In a system that receives mill runs of bar and coil to form production volumes of parts, the sites must now plan material matching to new sites, material transfer methodology depending on FARS, DFARS and LCS certifications. In order to keep the parts compliant for the customer and end use, the team takes a full integration approach to material receipt, drop-shipping, re-bundling and certification transfer. It will take teamwork across the system to preserve and consume volumes of raw materials that were flowing into Jenkintown to ensure the continued availability of this materials to PCC.
• How is it going 8 months away in October? How are the impacted customers today?: Recovery update.

This is a story of paradigm shifting, customer orientation and a team focused on a seamless recovery. This presentation will include a real-time update and will demonstrate at least two updated part paths (Boeing min/max product, one specialty product). The work illustrated will flow from the humanity of the disaster, to forming an unlikely team, to figuring out how to actually serve the customer from a virtual plant, following the actions and decisions of the front-line making the recovery happen.

Key learning objectives

1. The value of radical teamwork
2. How to rise from certain disaster
3. How to find a light on the horizon as a high performing team shifts from production to manufacturing recovery

Company

Precision Castparts Corporation is the market leader in manufacturing large, complex structural investment castings, airfoil castings, forged components, aerostructures and highly engineered, critical fasteners for aerospace applications.

In addition, the company is the leading producer of airfoil castings for the industrial gas turbine market. Precision Castparts Coporation also manufactures extruded seamless pipe, fittings and forging products for power generation, oil and gas applications, and commercial and military airframe aerostructures. Additionally, it manufacturers titanium and superalloys for the casting and forging industries.

With such critical applications, the company insists on quality and dependability – not just in the materials and products it makes, but in the people it recruits. https://www.precast.com

Presenters

Catherine Greer Limpo is a supply chain executive with experience across multiple industries including automotive, consumer products, heavy equipment, industrial automation, semiconductor and aerospace.

Before holding various roles in supply chain of increasing responsibility, Greer Limpo began her career as a Ford college graduate in the HR function after obtaining her MBA at the University of Oregon. She has held multiple complex global leadership roles in supply chain for the last 20+ years.

Analytics are extremely important to Greer Limpo as a way to prove that the direction taken is the right way to go. This could be comparative supplier information, supplier cost structure data, should costs, usage of cost models and metric development to ensure what is being measured will help to drive the business.

Fortunate to have had roles that have taken her literally around the world with many weekends to pass time, Greer Limpo has been able to take in the wonders that different countries and cities have to offer in terms of culture, food and physical uniqueness. An avid alpine skier, she has been able to hit the slopes in Europe and China. A dedicated yogi for 40 years and yoga teacher, Greer has sought yoga studios in virtually every country visited. A lover of hiking and the outdoors, she has walked for miles on the rustic Great Wall of China, the Bavarian Alps and other amazing places with peaks, cliffs, views and vistas. The very fortunate byproduct of this travel has been friendships with people around the world. Having extensive experience with global business travel, remote work, and working across multiple time zones, Greer knows developing relationships and working in 2025 can take on many creative forms. 

Sara Jette