Customer Success Story: Helicomb International, Inc.

Customer Background:

Founded in 1981 and located in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Helicomb, a division of PCC Aerostructures, is a vertically integrated, build-to-print, lean manufacturing facility that manufactures and repairs composite and metal-bonded parts, sub-assemblies and assemblies. Helicomb serves mission critical applications in the fixed-wing and helicopter aviation serving both commercial and military customers.

Portus Engagement Details

Owing to their heavy focus on military applications, Helicomb routinely deals with tight tolerances and extreme requirements in both their supply chain and operational activities. In order to meet these requirements, the company has had to install significant customizations to their Made2Manage ERP system. This customized environment required extreme flexibility in their business intelligence and analytics strategy. In 2014, Helicomb engaged Portus to install a turnkey analytics system with the flexibility to stretch and bend to handle the continuous customization of their ERP system.

Customer Perspective:

David Smith, Manager of Manufacturing Operations, says of Portus, “The insistence on delivering a “fit like a glove” solution is what makes Portus truly special. We did not buy software; we bought a flexible solution that has changed over time to meet our needs. What software vendor do you know that has biweekly status meetings with their customers and constantly collaborates with them in the design of the solution. We deal with a customer base that builds advanced systems for military and commercial systems that have to be 100% fault tolerant. They are extremely demanding because they have to be. Portus has dramatically increased satisfaction scores across our entire customer base. The solutions allows us to be much more proactive in solving supply inefficiencies before they become customer delivery problems.”