Lycoming factory delays

[PeytonM]

I emailed AirPower a couple days ago about the status of my rebuilt IO360, ordered in April and targeted for December 2025 delivery. Now it is May 2026! Note that AirPower was notified September 6th. And they have my deposit! 

Lycoming Reschedule Letter.pdf

[1980Mooney]

Sorry to hear that your plane will be down for such a long time.  But this just highlights as previously discussed that Lycoming sees this as a temporary demand aberration that they will work off as best they can with their current manufacturing plant and workforce.  As Textron allocates capital to all its businesses and (Lycoming has to compete for it) investing in additional automated production capacity and hiring more unionized labor this just doesn't rise to the level that makes sense.  If they committed now to additional production capacity, it probably would not be functional until 2026 just at demand falls back.  Demand just isn't there.  

To survive the brutal downturn in demand for engines starting in the late 80's, Lycoming aggressively outsourced manufacturing of many critical parts and reduced capacity. The Lycoming plant became more of an engine assembler and with less and less competitive advantage from independent engine shops.  Outsourcing, while cutting cost, sacrificed quality control.  The crankshaft debacle of the late 90's/early 2000's was due to botched heat treating by a vendor.  As @PT20J noted, Lycoming brought manufacturing of jugs back in house just before Covid.  Piston manufacturing also returned.  These are huge "additions" to manufacturing at Williamsport and very disruptive.  Covid brought more disruption.

Bottom line, you can get in line and wait at Lycoming or you can have independents like Jewell in Kennett do your overhaul. more quickly....

Lycoming Takes Piston Manufacturing Back In-House - AVweb

 

[PeytonM]

Fortunately I do not need the engine…yet; I was planning ahead. But I cannot afford more “forever” delays either. This 5-6 month push will affect 1000 customer orders, so there is some demand. 

[Slick Nick]

So, what’s the solution? How do they expect to be able to keep the lights on if they can’t ever deliver an engine?

[1980Mooney]

28 minutes ago, Slick Nick said:

So, what’s the solution? How do they expect to be able to keep the lights on if they can’t ever deliver an engine?

They are delivering engines. They may have gotten more orders than planned. And they may have some suppler delays. That expands their backlog. 
 

But they have everyone’s deposit. And if they need to tie more money up in inventory longer than expected, they will just get a cash advance from Textron Corp - think of it as an interest free loan. 
 

That’s how they keep the lights on. And when they ship then they realize big cash and big profits. It’s just a timing issue. Granted a painful one for a plane owner that needs to buy one. 

[EricJ]

52 minutes ago, Slick Nick said:

So, what’s the solution? How do they expect to be able to keep the lights on if they can’t ever deliver an engine?

They also have a diesel engine business that may not have the same problems.

 

[PT20J]

The Lycoming letter posted by @PeytonM references multiple supplier issues. I’ve noticed that a lot of businesses have not recovered from the disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. I now stock up on a lot of personal items because I cannot depend on stores having them when I need them. A lot of healthcare professionals have retired leading to a shortage. My dentist has been trying to hire hygienists for months. It takes months to schedule an appointment with my primary care physician. 

[jetdriven]

I noticed a lot of businesses are quick to blame their own shortcomings on Covid. By and large Covid supply chain disruptions have ended.. And everybody else is putting out stuff, how long are Continental Engines delayed for parts?

last I checked, you can’t get cases you can’t get cylinders you can’t get crankshafts.  
There’s more to it than this.

[LANCECASPER]

There's a lot of things that play into this, but, just my opinion, these are a couple of pieces to the puzzle:

-A tremendous amount of skilled labor and management from the baby boomer generation has retired in the last 5-15 years. It's been very difficult to replace those skills, that work ethic and that knowledge base.

-In the 1980's and 1990's Jack Welch CEO of GE was heralded as a genius and Just-In-Time Inventory management was his brainchild. He promoted keeping almost no inventory and using logistics to get what you need just when you need it so you don't have to store it or pay inventory tax on it or tie up capital, etc. For a short time he looked like the genius many people thought he was, but long term it broke down an entire infrastructure of businesses stocking items, even though it turned FedEx and UPS into shipping giants. Back in the 1970's-1990's for sure, maybe even early 2000's,  if you wanted an aircraft engine a Distributor would have one in stock and it could be shipped out right away. In the unlikely event that they didn't have it, the factory might have it in their warehouse, if not there was enough manufacturing capacity to order it and get it to you in a month. The great recession of 2008 lowered demand so it wasn't all that noticeable until a huge demand upswing started around 2018-19, then another wrench got thrown in, Covid. Now people have time on their hands and they don't want to travel on the airlines and flight training skyrockets. Covid gets blamed, but really just revealed how broken everything was. Now the distributors of many products, not just aviation-related products, stock almost nothing, choosing just to dropship it from the manufacturer, and with a huge unexpected demand in the past few years it's revealed a massive shortage of stock, even the ability to produce end products in an timely fashion. This didn't happen overnight. It's taken a few decades for things to crumble to where we are now. It's starting to get better but it will probably take another decade at least to strike a balance. 

[Schllc]

7 hours ago, 1980Mooney said:

If they committed now to additional production capacity, it probably would not be functional until 2026 just at demand falls back.  Demand just isn't there. 

If the capacity comes from automation, it would take weeks, at longest to utilize in production. They already have all the code required to run more advanced machines. It would be producing very quickly. 
But I think you are right that they believe this demand is aberrant.  I am not completely convinced that it’s loosening up.  My only reference is from watching the market of what’s for sale.   Planes are still in high demand. 
I wish they would just explain when such a large commitment is required. 

[GeeBee]

Personally, if I was looking down the barrel of a Lycoming overhaul, I would be talking to Carlus Gann at Gann Aviation. Much better engine in maybe faster time.

 

[A64Pilot]

On 10/26/2024 at 5:10 PM, GeeBee said:

Personally, if I was looking down the barrel of a Lycoming overhaul, I would be talking to Carlus Gann at Gann Aviation. Much better engine in maybe faster time.

 

I would do that anyway, even if Lycoming had them stacked up.

The 500 hr Gann “Performance” engine is why I bought my airplane, I overlooked the no glass, original interior and paint missing on the leading edges for that motor

[gevertex]

On 10/25/2024 at 1:50 PM, 1980Mooney said:

Sorry to hear that your plane will be down for such a long time.  But this just highlights as previously discussed that Lycoming sees this as a temporary demand aberration that they will work off as best they can with their current manufacturing plant and workforce.  As Textron allocates capital to all its businesses and (Lycoming has to compete for it) investing in additional automated production capacity and hiring more unionized labor this just doesn't rise to the level that makes sense.  If they committed now to additional production capacity, it probably would not be functional until 2026 just at demand falls back.  Demand just isn't there.  

To survive the brutal downturn in demand for engines starting in the late 80's, Lycoming aggressively outsourced manufacturing of many critical parts and reduced capacity. The Lycoming plant became more of an engine assembler and with less and less competitive advantage from independent engine shops.  Outsourcing, while cutting cost, sacrificed quality control.  The crankshaft debacle of the late 90's/early 2000's was due to botched heat treating by a vendor.  As @PT20J noted, Lycoming brought manufacturing of jugs back in house just before Covid.  Piston manufacturing also returned.  These are huge "additions" to manufacturing at Williamsport and very disruptive.  Covid brought more disruption.

Bottom line, you can get in line and wait at Lycoming or you can have independents like Jewell in Kennett do your overhaul. more quickly....

Lycoming Takes Piston Manufacturing Back In-House - AVweb

 

I think there is some distinction in quality between any 3rd party shop and Jewell. In fact, savvy has been reporting fewer defects from 3rd party shops than Lycoming recently.