Executive VP & President of Gulfstream, General Dynamics
Mark Burns - Geneva Luncheon May 2019
Mark Burns - Geneva Luncheon May 2019.Would like first to welcome our featured speaker mr. mark burns president Gulfstream aviation corporation and a vice president of ...
About Mark Burns
Mark Burns, President of Gulfstream Aviation Corporation and a Vice President of General Dynamics, spoke at a Geneva luncheon in May 2019 about the company's approach to innovation and industry leadership. He noted that Gulfstream spent over 100,000 test hours on aircraft systems and 35,000 simulated flying hours before the first flight of a new model, describing this as a method to ensure technology is mature upon delivery. Burns also stated that the company was the first to certify an airplane using the Organization Designation Authorization (ODA) process, which he called "a very thorough process" that produced "some of the safest and most technologically advanced airplanes we've ever built." Burns discussed the industry's responsibility to advocate for sustainable aviation fuels, noting that Gulfstream had conducted a record flight from Savannah to Van Nuys using only alternative fuels. He acknowledged that supply and pricing remain challenges but said he believes there is demand for such fuels and that it is up to the industry to be leaders in this area. Burns emphasized the importance of leading with integrity, keeping promises on delivery times, and maintaining discipline in building, selling, and servicing aircraft, with a focus on understanding and evolving with the customer.
Transcript (42 segments)
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Moderator0:00
I would like first to welcome our featured speaker, Mr. Mark Burns, President of Gulfstream Aviation Corporation and a Vice President of General Dynamics.
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Mark Burns1:02
To get the chance to speak with you, I get a lot of chances to speak as you would imagine. It's typically about Gulfstream, or now as the chairman of GAMA along with Pete, the opportunity to advocate for industry issues, and then more recently because of some of the development work we've done, to speak about innovation and the things that we are doing.
I love that video for the reasons that it calms me down, but also that I think it kind of personifies what the industry has done and the technology. It emphasizes the excitement around aviation and the things that we have done to make airplanes safer, more reliable, and actually more desirable. So we're excited about that.
There's an old saying that we often overestimate what we can do in a year but far underestimate what we can do in a decade. I think that holds true for aviation. Some of the things that we have done over the last decade are truly amazing. They're differentiators in this marketplace for us, and we're excited to be able to show some of those products around the world.
I've been here for quite some time, as you heard from the distinguished statesman that actually used to be called the elder statesman, so I'm not sure how to take that quite honestly. But it is an honor on behalf of all Gulfstream employees to be recognized for that innovation work that we have done, particularly over the last couple of decades.
If you think about just this last decade, we have developed three totally new airplanes, not derivatives of something we've done in the past, but airplanes that are truly unique and technologically advanced. As Howard pointed out in the beginning, G650 was the beginning of a journey for us that will take us decades into the future. G500 and G600 simultaneous development have just put incredible opportunities in front of us to develop new technologies, new airplanes.
And when you're doing that, one of the things you have to do is to ensure that you're making mature designs, new designs but mature designs, and we'll talk about that a little bit as we go along today. So I will try to be quick. I know you all didn't bring your sunblock, so I will try to keep this to a minimum. I have a number of things I'd like to show you.
Gulfstream today, so we're about 18,000 employees. I will tell you the year I started we were under a thousand people, so it's very gratifying to walk through our factories every day and see the smiling faces of the people that are building and designing these airplanes. You know, when I started it was predominantly a US market. There were a few airplanes here in Western Europe, but it was predominantly a US market. In some ways it was an East Coast of the US market, but it has changed dramatically. The growth around the world, the new customers being introduced to aviation is rapidly increasing.
So I talked about product excellence and the rigor of design and the innovation that we put forth. I believe this is kind of the cornerstone of who Gulfstream is. It is innovation for the sake of the customer and making sure that we're focused on things that make a difference for the people that we sell airplanes to.
This is the product lineup. We have all the airplanes here this week, and we're excited to show those off, particularly the G600, which we're getting close to certification, so excited to have that airplane here this week. This new design that started with the G650 of efficient, high-speed travel really is something that we focused significantly on for over a decade now.
And it really proves itself not just in the very immediate thing that you would think of, and that is that it saves people time, but it's also safer, it's also less expensive. It does a lot of things for customers and their cost of operation, their long-term ownership, residual value. All the hours that we save also go back into these things, not just saving them time personally, but also the benefit of the cost of operation.
We did a record recently from Teterboro to Dubai, and it really shows the efficiency of the airplane. You can see the time and speed here. It is an advancement in technology for us that started with the 650. We've done over 80 speed records now on 650, we've done 30 on G500. Now it's just a huge advance forward as far as efficiency and use of the product.
But it's not all about speed, obviously. What we do has to be flexible. Our people that buy products from us want the flexibility of going wherever they want in the world, and being able to demonstrate that flexibility in short fields and steep approach and things of that nature is hugely important. Not just how fast we are, but how flexible the product may be.
So this is a new era for us. We've spent a great deal of time since 2014 when we announced G500 and G600 to this point where we started delivering the airplanes last summer. We're almost up to 20 airplanes in service now since we met last time at EBACE. We certified the airplane and started delivery. Very soon we will get certification of the G600 as well and start those deliveries this year. So we're excited about this new era. It is a huge investment in technology. I'm going to show you a little bit about the technology that went into building these airplanes.
So I talked about G600. We're in the very final throes of the function and reliability testing. We should wrap up here very soon. We are working closely with the FAA to get this done and excited about delivering this incredible new airplane that has even exceeded our expectations as far as performance.
So when we started out to design this airplane, we knew that we were going to be the very first one in a lot of particular areas. So active control side sticks is a first for our industry. The data concentration network that's on 500 and 600 is a wireless internet, if you will, that aggregates computers throughout the airplane into a single source that gives our pilots more information at their fingertips, easier to use. So it's a very first in our industry.
We're also the very first airplane to certify using the ODA. So we were fully certified under the ODA. We were actually the very first ODA for the FAA back in 2008. So we've been at this process for a long time. We understand it very well. It's a very thorough process. I think it's created and delivered some of the safest airplanes that we have ever built, certainly the most technologically advanced airplanes we've ever built.
Proud of this technology. You know, we have been looking at side stick controls almost for a decade before we ever really started in earnest to put it in an airplane, mainly because we believed passive control was not the safest mode to go. We felt like active control is important. We've worked on it for many years. This is the first airplane in our industry with active control. We believe it makes a difference. We've had several awards because of this technology. It is a true advancement in safety of aircraft.
The Symmetry Flight Deck was really a labor of love for Colin Miller and the flight team to make sure that we made the flight deck user-friendly for our pilots, to give them more information at their fingertips but easier access to the information that they need each and every day. This has been a true step forward for us as well. All touch screens in the operation.
We have a, if you want to go to mygulfstream.com, there's an 11-part series on how Symmetry Flight Deck was developed. It's truly intriguing. It talks to our early engineers, our early first flight pilots, and how it evolved and the technology that was used in some of the conventional and unconventional ways that we used to develop this technology.
So I talked about certifying new airplanes. So you take things like active control side stick and touch screens and autonomous control systems for safety in the airplane, data concentration networks. When you do technology of that nature, you also have to look at how you're going to certify that technology and how you're going to make it so that it's useful to the customer. So the ways we certified airplanes in the past and the way we develop technology needed to change.
So we set out to develop an RD lab that took all of those different systems and how we build airplanes, not just the mechanical side of the airplane but how that airplane interfaced with the interior, how systems worked, how reliable they were. We literally spent over 100,000 test hours of actual operation of aircraft systems prior to the airplane being built. We spent over 35,000 hours simulated flying of the airplane before we ever lift it off for the very first time. This way is the way to develop new technology but ensure that it's mature when you deliver it to a customer.
Very proud of the effort of our team to develop these technologies. We talked about our commitment as an industry to being good stewards of what we've been given during lunch, and one of the ways that we've done that is through sustainable fuels. I'll talk about it a little bit in just a second, but we did a recent record on our G280 from Savannah to Van Nuys all on alternative fuels. I think we have the responsibility as an industry to continue to advocate for this fuel and the safety of that component.
And the last of the airplanes that we brought today, an iconic airplane for us, the G550. We continue to build the G550. It's a very great performing airplane, great value in the marketplace for us today, and still the holder of over 50 speed records around the world. It also gives us an incredible platform to build special missions airplanes.
And Lita Chong is with us today and runs our government relations. I don't think we've ever been as busy as we are today with special missions requests from around the world, not just for communications airplanes or battlefield surveillance, but also medevac airplanes. Medevac airplanes are becoming more prevalent as governments look to increase their reach around the world.
This is one that we built for Beijing 999. You know, medevac airplanes used to be about evacuating somebody to a facility where their life could be saved or they could be treated. These airplanes have evolved to actually being the operating room. So it's not just about evacuating a patient to a facility, it's about actually life-saving moments on the airplane. And this has been one that we've developed in concert with several of our vendors, but it is truly an operating room in the sky.
So as we talk about building airplanes, I had a chance probably about a year and a half ago to speak at the Royal Aeronautical Society in London, and this young man was in the front row and he asked me, in my long career, and so I didn't like him from the start because he's making me older than I wanted to be, but he said, 'What's changed the most?' And I think it's this. I think it's what you're looking at. It's the precision with which airplanes are built today.
It enables us to do things like enhance the speed of the airplane and reduce drag and weight. We can literally build a wing with zero defects. It is a truly amazing step forward. You know, when I started, the airplanes were largely hand-built. Today we can build airplanes almost flawlessly. It's absolutely amazing opportunity.
All of that stuff, all those labs and robots and everything make a difference, but it truly is about our workforce. We have an incredible workforce dedicated to our customer. We are very customer-centric. We talk about it consistently. What are we delivering to the customer? Is the quality the right level of quality? Is it the right product for our customers? We do a lot of customer advisory board interactions that give us the guidance we need, but it does come down to our people and their commitment to our customer.
You know, so if I stopped at this point and said, 'Okay, you know, what does Gulfstream do?' You could probably tell me based on what you knew, what I've shown you. If I said, 'How does Gulfstream do it?' You could probably come up with the answer as well. I think the real tricky one is why do we do what we do, and this is the hard part. But it really goes back to that customer. How do we differentiate the products and the services that we have? And I think it's because our endeavor as a company is to create every moment that our customers are using our airplanes something that is memorable to them and that it's reliable and again, it's mature.
So the why is because we're committed to the customer. At the end of the day, we could build a thousand a week if we wanted to, but if nobody wanted to buy any of them, we really wouldn't have a product. So it is about the commitment to our customer.
So again, one of the real cornerstones of that commitment is our service network. We talked about that at lunch as well. It has been an integral part of our vision for the future for at least the three and a half decades that I've been with Gulfstream. The commitment to the customer is real. It is something that I do every day. I have a number of my colleagues here. I'll tell you one of the first things I do every morning is read feedback from our customers about how they feel we're doing from a support standpoint or how our products are performing. I believe it's that important to know what your customer feels about the experience.
We've invested heavily in product support for a long, long time. We're building two new service facilities at our largest sites in Appleton, Wisconsin, and Savannah, Georgia right now. We'll open those very shortly this year. We have a new facility going up in Van Nuys, California this year, and we just broke ground on two new facilities, the largest of which will be at Farnborough. It will be the largest facility we've ever built outside of the US, over 200,000 square feet, give us a capability to grow far beyond the 200,000 square feet at the site. So we're excited about that as well as a recent breaking that we did down in West Palm Beach, Florida.
You know, it's easy to say you're 24 hours a day, but when you're in the business we are in and your customers have great expectations of you, you've asked them to have great expectations of you, it's important and incumbent that you be there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every day of every year. We've made a huge investment in that technology as well. The airplanes today, the fidelity of the information coming off the airplanes in flight actually goes into our call center. The team there can evaluate the health of the airplane and make good decisions to help our customers have a reliable experience. So this is a truly big step forward in support for us.
So I think as we discussed during lunch as well, I think as leaders in this industry, it's important for us to advocate for the industry that's done so much for us, not just Gulfstream but all of us. And I make it a point of every time I get an opportunity to speak, I always speak at the end about advocacy, more to implore all of us to do what we can to talk about some of the things that Howard was referring to earlier, sustainable fuels.
We have been working with sustainable fuels for some time. I believe it's important for us to be a leader in this regard, in that sustainable fuels really are something we committed as an industry many years ago to reduce our carbon footprint. Every airplane that we've designed over the last two decades has become more efficient, more aerodynamic, less noise emissions. So this is one of those steps forward. We have done almost a million flight hours now with sustainable fuels in our corporate airplanes and our flight test airplanes and our customer service airplanes because we want to be a leader in this regard. We just started actually selling it for consumers, for our customers, recently at two of our sites.
I think there's obviously some things we need to do with supply and the pricing, but I believe there's demand there and I believe it's up to us to continue to be a leader in this regard. And as Howard pointed out, I think we all have a responsibility. We've been given a lot as an industry. The growth in just my short career, see I put the short career in there, I think we owe it to the next generation to be prepared. And it is something we focus on a great deal within Gulfstream. I know many of you do throughout your business, but we have a responsibility to give the next generation the tools that they need to be able to lead us forward.
And as you looked at what we were doing, you know, airplanes again largely hand-built 35 years ago, a very different way of building airplanes. Today the training is different, the schools have to be different. We have to advocate for the workforce that we need, but we also need to help them prepare to be able to be ready for the next generation.
So mercifully this is the last slide. So I will tell you again, I believe strongly that it's important for us as a company to be a leader in this industry. And I think the best and most important way to do that is to lead with integrity, to make sure that we keep our promises. If we say an airplane will deliver on time, or when it will deliver, that we do that on time, whether it's a new airplane or a service airplane or a part. It's important for us to deliver on time.
We talk about these five things you see here quite frequently in house. We all advocate for this business that's been so good to us. Important that we remain disciplined, discipline not only in how we build airplanes but how we sell airplanes. We need to advocate for the things that I know make our company better, and that is truly the discipline of building and selling airplanes and servicing airplanes.
And then lastly, we need to be focused on the customer. I know I said that a lot of times throughout the presentation, but I believe that is the cornerstone of what has made us successful as a company. Understanding the customer, evolving with the customer, being prepared to help the customer in whatever their endeavor may be, but being there for the customer at all times, I believe is important. So with that, I will thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to be here.
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