MDS
TO THE TEST
MDS
MDS’S ENGINE TESTING CENTRES ARE ASTOUNDING FEATS OF CONSTRUCTION & ENGINEERING.
TO THE TEST PROJECT MANAGED BY: TREVOR GRETSINGER
MDS was founded in Canada in 1985, growing out of a construction company founded by a German immigrant named Hans Odoerfer. He began working on construction for military hush houses, noise-suppressed facilities used for testing aircraft systems for the Canadian military.
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“A
s things evolved, he was asked if he was prepared to take over the test systems and in the pure entrepreneurial spirit he said ‘Yeah, sure! What could go wrong?’,” laughs Simon Arbuthnot, Chief Operations Officer of MDS. Today MDS constructs facilities for the testing of jet engines and their subsystems while providing services in the same space by operating, supporting and maintaining
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these facilities. It’s work that has seen MDS go on to collaborate with the leaders in the sector and drive growth, most recently through the acquisition of a company called AneCom AeroTest GmbH in Germany, which has the facilities and expertise for testing jet engine fans and compressors, as well as designing and building test rigs. “Originally, AneCom was a joint venture which included Rolls-Royce, where we designed and built the facility and secured
local funding in Germany,” Arbuthnot tells us. “Last year we bought out the Rolls-Royce share and the investment share, so it’s owned entirely by MDS and the company management.”
AN IMPRESSIVE TRACK RECORD
This is the latest addition to an already impressive track record that began with MDS’s first major test facility, built in Morocco for Royal Air Maroc in the early 1990s. That facility is still operational today.
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“Facilities we build have very long lives, contractually guaranteed for 25 years but potentially able to last up to 50 years,” Arbuthnot points out. “Test Bed 80, which we’re currently building for RollsRoyce in Derby is the biggest test facility in the world, able to accommodate up 150,000 lb of thrust engines, supporting the development of the Rolls-Royce range of Trent engines and the Ultrafan demonstrator engines.” The facility is a development facility, able to perform the complex, technical testing necessary to demonstrate newly designed engines are meeting regulations. These facilities are the most complex, with an emphasis on gathering as much data as possible. “You’ll be measuring tens of thousands of parameters,” Arbuthnot reminds us. “For testing jet engines and development facilities I’d consider MDS to be the number one in the world. Everyone’s
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aware of the civil aviation applications but we also work with gas turbines for the industrial and military aviation sectors, as well as powering ships for marine.” With a résumé like that it’s easy to see why MDS has become the go-to name in the sector. “We often find ourselves on the critical path of multi-milliondollar jet engine development programmes. We’re able to do this because we have built a long-term relationship with long-term trust,” Arbuthnot says. “As a result of this, we’ve been fortunate to have the opportunity to build facilities for customers around the world. These include facilities that we have built for Rolls-Royce, such as Test Bed 61 in Germany and two facilities at the John C. Stennis Space Centre in Mississippi, USA.” As well as their track record, MDS also leverages its strong relationships with client companies.
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MDS
“FOR TESTING JET ENGINES AND DEVELOPMENT FACILITIES I’D CONSIDER MDS TO BE THE NUMBER ONE IN THE WORLD. EVERYONE’S AWARE OF THE CIVIL AVIATION APPLICATIONS BUT WE ALSO WORK WITH GAS TURBINES FOR THE INDUSTRIAL AND MILITARY AVIATION SECTORS, AS WELL AS POWERING SHIPS FOR MARINE.”
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“When we work with OEMs such as Rolls-Royce or Pratt & Whitney, we work with them for a number of years. A lot of the people there we come to know very well and it’s all about developing long-term relationships and developing trust,” Arbuthnot emphasises. “We’re a private company, management-owned, which presents challenges but also real benefits. We can make the right strategic decisions longterm for the company. We really think about doing the right thing in the long term for all of our stakeholders and ultimately this should benefit MDS. We need our customers to be delighted by what we have delivered so that it is an easy decision to come back to us in the future. The facilities that we build represent a very significant investment for our customers. Given this level of investment, we foresee more partnerships and collaboration in the industry to help develop business cases that make sense. We’ve already demonstrated that we can be flexible and creative in developing commercial solutions that drive real value for our customers and we are keen to continue developing these solutions.” Sometimes these projects can involve finding unorthodox solutions to common industry challenges. “We’ve built a facility in Thompson Manitoba, used for icing testing,” Arbuthnot says. “One of the areas of certification is testing in icing conditions. This used to involve chasing weather, flying after storms to get icing conditions or testing in very expensive facilities that create conditions for icing. We realised in Thompson Manitoba, 750km north of Winnipeg, they have over 200 days a year of icing conditions. So we talked
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to leaders in the industry, built it for them and now operate that facility for them.”
THE RIGHT ATTITUDE
As to how MDS has built such a track record, Arbuthnot puts it down to three key ingredients. “We boil it down to three things, our knowledge, agility and attitude,” he says. “We’re subject matter experts across all aspects of everything we do, from mechanical engineering, aerodynamics and acoustics, fluid systems instrumentation and controls to software design. We have a global supply chain we leverage regularly, we’ve proved we’re knowledgeable, we’re agile enough to move quickly and adapt. There is a lot of customisation required
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with a development facility so we regularly use a two-stage process. Phase one is we work with our customer to develop a specification together. For Test Bed 80, Rolls-Royce had a number of fundamental requirements. We sized the testbed and designed the features and by the end of phase one, we were able to give them a fixed firm price. That level of collaboration and teamwork reduces the risk for both parties so it’s a win-win approach. We’re also able to agree on the level of technology required to future proof the facility for the long term.” Of those three ingredients, the attitude might be the most essential, and it is at the forefront of Arbuthnot’s mind when recruiting.
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“IT’S NOT ENOUGH FOR OUR CUSTOMERS TO GET A FANTASTIC WORLD-CLASS FACILITY. THEY HAVE TO ENJOY THE PROCESS OF WORKING WITH US.” “Attitude is one of the things I emphasise to my team. It’s not enough for our customers to get a fantastic world-class facility. They have to enjoy the process of working with us,” he says. “We work hard to recruit the right people. It’s not hard to find people with the technical know-how but we also need them to have the right attitude. We do additional testing beyond the technical to understand their preferences, styles and behaviours.” Looking forward, Arbuthnot believes these qualities are really going to allow MDS to take flight. “We do projects all around the world. We don’t have any customers in Ottawa where we’re based but it’s useful
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to be close to the Canadian government and their agencies such as Commercial Corporation of Canada (CCC) and Export Development Canada (EDC),” he tells us. “We execute very large projects, which can require an investment of up to £90 million. That is very significant for us in terms of revenue. CCC effectively provides a parent company guarantee on behalf of the government of Canada, based on their trust of us. EDC also supports us with a wide range of financial tools, which may not otherwise be available to a company of our size. Both of these organisations are key partners in helping us to do work around the world. We see
a lot of developing countries investing heavily in gas turbine technology. They see value in investing in that technology and the spin-offs that come with it, which can lead to other areas. So generally it’s good for their economies. We also see the established OEMs looking to develop their capabilities further, particularly in the fields of clean combustion, clean fuels, a lot of activity around electric flight and work on electric and hybrid-electric facilities. We are actively developing our capability in this space and have secured funding to take that further forward as well, positioning ourselves for these new technologies.”
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