HITCO Carbon Composites, Inc.
WHO IS HITCO?
HITCO Carbon Composites, Inc. is a major supplier of Composite Structures, Rocket Nozzles, and High Temperature Materials to the Aerospace and Industrial Markets. Founded in 1922 by Harry I. Thompson, HITCO is the oldest, continuously operating composites provider in the United States. Located on 26 acres just 10 minutes away from Los Angeles International Airport, HITCO is ideally situated to serve both domestic and international Aerospace customers.
What does HITCO have to offer?
HITCO has the know-how, facilities and equipment, business and quality processes, Lean Manufacturing principals, and most importantly, a track record of success to help our customers successfully transition traditional metal structures to composites.
Know-How - HITCO employs over 185 hourly and salaried employees who exclusively engineer, fabricate, assemble and inspect aerospace composites. 60 employees are degreed, 17 have advanced degrees. The average tenure of these employees is over 15 years. HITCO’s technical staff has extensive experience in concurrently developing highly complex aerospace composite nozzle assemblies and structures. To cite just two examples: both the Delta IV Nozzle Assembly and C-17 Tailcone were designed, tooled and delivered in less than 12 months, and despite tremendous change and considerable growth in complexity; HITCO was able to maintain or reduce its price to its customer.
Facilities and Equipment - HITCO currently has approximately 400,000 square feet of manufacturing space under roof. About 75% of the total space, or 300,000 square feet, is dedicated to manufacturing. Currently HITCO utilizes about 60% of this space, leaving 120,000 square feet open for new programs. Additionally, HITCO has all of the necessary equipment to fabricate large, highly complex assemblies. This equipment includes 9 large autoclaves and hydroclaves, a 6 MeV Real Time Radiography Facility, mold presses to 2,100 tons, N/C ply cutting and various large N/C mills and lathes.
Business and Quality Processes - HITCO is certified to ISO 9001 and is compliant with D1-9000, D6-82479 and AS 9100. HITCO has quality systems designed to meet the most demanding Air-Force and FAA standards for documentation and process control. Further, HITCO has refined these systems to produce these records and documentation at the lowest total cost. The net result is 100% traceability and process control.
Lean Manufacturing - HITCO’s experience with lean manufacturing began over 8 years ago when it implemented its first JIT assembly line. Since that time, every major process and assembly has been re-engineered using lean principals. All new programs will utilize the best practices of this combined experience. Concepts like visual factory control, KanBan, Statistical Process Control and 5S will be implemented from program inception. The benefits to our customers are shorter lead-times and lower unit prices.
Track Record - The results of these efforts speak for themselves:
Delta IV: Complex Nozzle assembly, conceived, designed, tooled and fabricated in less than 12 months---an Industry first.
C-17: Large (12’ high, 14’ wide) complex structure using over 3500 fasteners is manufactured using less than 1000 hours.
Boeing 767 Flap Track Fairings: 18 hybrid metal/composite subassemblies, fabricated start-to-finish complete in 20 manufacturing days.
A380 VTP Rib Truss
HITCO is a supplier that has proven the ability to concurrently develop, tool and fabricate large, complex, high risk and high value programs. We are confident that our experience with flight critical hardware ensures our customers the highest quality product at the lowest possible cost.
