Metal fabricator develops business model focused on aircraft maintenance

Aircraft maintenance actions are safer and carried out more efficiently when the maintenance crew works from a sturdy, well-designed platform rather than a ladder. SAFE Structure Designs’ president and CEO, Johnny Buscema, created a new way of doing business when he founded a new company to build such platforms. Images provided by SAFE Structure Designs

Imagine earning a degree in business administration, leaving the university, and working in three industries in rapid succession. This is how the early part of Johnny Buscema’s career played out as he made his way through finance, construction, and manufacturing. He describes each phase in various terms of success, hitting a peak when he held the twin positions of president and CEO for a metal fabrication company. That was just before his career crashed and he had to start over at the bottom.

Straight out of college Buscema landed a job with a nationally known finance company and earned recognition from his employer for successfully running a branch office. Not a bad start to a career. Then, exhibiting a flair for entrepreneurship and relying on a family history in real estate, he founded a new business, a general contractor in the construction industry. After a feeling of restlessness set in, he found an opportunity in metal fabrication, working for a company making work stands for aircraft maintenance. He credits his ambition and determination as forces that helped double that company’s sales each year during his time with the company.

It was a family business, and with no warning, Buscema found himself up against the family, accused of criminal wrongdoing, he said. Although he was the majority stakeholder, he was suddenly without a title and without an income. Because his personal assets were tied to the company, he said he also was suddenly without a savings account or a home. His immediate future seemed bleak, at best. The loss of his house made him homeless, and the criminal charge made him unmarketable.

Still, Buscema’s faith was unshaken.

“I was okay with sleeping on park benches,” Buscema said. “I was excited about the future and eager for new challenges.”

Eventually he would start a new metal fabrication company. Some things would remain the same, such as the products he would build­—mobile maintenance platforms for working at elevated heights—and the main market he would serve—helicopter maintenance and repair. One thing would not remain the same, and that was his way of doing business.

Help for Helo Mechanics

Initially powered by internal combustion engines, helicopters became much more capable when powered by turbines. Various rotary-wing aircraft have achieved extraordinary feats, such as reaching a top speed of nearly 250 miles per hour, traveling more than 2,000 miles without landing, flying higher than 36,000 ft., and lifting a payload of 56 tons.

In the military, where it’s commonly known as a helo, the aircraft’s versatility allows numerous roles, such as medical evacuation, ground attack, armed escort, and troop transport, including insertions and extractions in contested territory. They also are known for an especially hair-raising role, one in which an unarmed observation helicopter flies at a high altitude, baiting ground fire, followed at a distance by a low-flying armed helicopter. Known as a hunter-killer team, the pair uses two-way radio communication to eliminate ground positions so other helicopters can fulfill their roles.

Civilian roles generally aren’t terrifying, but certainly firefighting, medevac, and some search-and-rescue missions are more than a little stressful.

Every pilot prides himself on having a light touch on the controls for smooth flying, but many varieties of helicopter mission don’t lend themselves to cautious, deliberate flying and gentle handling. A military helicopter that hasn’t been overrevved, overtemped, overtorqued, or overstressed in some fashion is about as rare as hen’s teeth, and firefighting and medevac missions in the civilian world certainly invite pilots to work right up to the edges of the flight envelope from time to time.

Tail platforms wrap around the aircraft’s tail, providing full access to the tail rotor, its drive shaft, and its control system.

Furthermore, helicopters aren’t terribly graceful. Fixed-wing aircraft, especially gliders, are known for streamlined, elegant designs, whereas rotary-wing aircraft rely less on sophistication and more on brute force to stay aloft. Some might go so far as to say that helicopters don’t look like they should be able to fly at all. Quips abound.

• “Helicopters don’t fly. They beat the air into submission.”

• “A helicopter is defined as 10,000 spinning parts flying in close formation around an oil leak.”

• “If something hasn't broken on your helicopter, it's about to.”

Although they are intended to evoke a smile, taken together, they hint at the effort needed to keep a helicopter airworthy. It’s a mechanically complex system that generates vast amounts of torque, centrifugal force, and lift; even normal missions put tremendous stresses on nearly every moving part, and many parts endure a little misuse from time to time, especially when the mission is hot. It’s no surprise that every helicopter, military or civilian, needs regular inspections, routine maintenance, and frequent repairs.

These tasks aren’t necessarily simple. In many cases, the mechanic has to clamber up a stepladder, a tool or two in hand, and work 15 ft. or more off the ground. The ladder provides no place for tools, parts, or supplies, so trips up and down the ladder are part of the job. Ladders aren’t equipped with handrails or restraints, so falling is a big risk.

“Many use custom-made ladders, but they’re still ladders,” Buscema said.

A mobile maintenance platform makes the mechanic’s work much easier, faster, and safer, and this is where Buscema’s company, SAFE Structure Designs, enters the picture. Akin to scaffolding on wheels, a mobile maintenance unit is everything a ladder is not.

Rich in plate, tube—round, square, and rectangular—and weldments, a maintenance platform has steps rather than rungs and handrails for support when climbing and descending. A long, wide platform makes the mechanic’s job easy, allowing him to get around the aircraft. It provides plenty of space for laying out tools, organizing supplies, and staging parts, and it has a handrail that surrounds the entire work platform to prevent falls.

Because one size doesn’t fit all, the company has a substantial number of designs. Regardless of the various locations and dimensions of key features, such as the tail boom, doors, and main rotor, SAFE Structure Designs has a work platform for every commonly sold helicopter and nearly all of the not-so-common ones too.

When using a maintenance platform designed for a specific aircraft, it’s not uncommon for one mechanic to work outside while another works on the inside. Opening a door isn’t a problem if the platform designer took the doors’ locations and dimensions into consideration.

Designing a Maintenance Platform

When designing a maintenance platform for a new model, SAFE’s design team works out a concept and reviews the project with the customer, soliciting the customer’s input.

“We learn from mechanics to develop options and features that never existed before,” Buscema said.

After SAFE’s engineers work with the customer to develop and refine any suggestions, the fabricators still aren’t quite ready to cut metal. The company sends the plans to the customer one more time for a final approval. The design cycle can be time-consuming, but according to Buscema, the time spent on tailoring designs to suit specific customers is time well spent.

“Nine out of 10 of our customers approve the final designs,” he said.

Side Platforms. For all of their variety in dimensions to suit specific helicopters, mobile work platforms have many characteristics in common. Starting from the bottom and working upward, the first issue is the mobility afforded by the casters. After the platform is in place next to the aircraft, it would be a good idea to do more than merely lock the casters in place, so SAFE uses jack stands to make the platform immobile. Second, no mechanic wants to try to climb a ladder with a tool box or a replacement part, so the company uses stairs equipped with hand rails. A manual winch system raises and lowers the deck to accommodate a variety of aircraft and worker heights.

The work surface itself is covered with an antifatigue mat that is both slip-resistant and chemical-resistant. A small amount of oil or hydraulic fluid doesn’t defeat the mat’s ability to provide grip, thereby preventing a slip or a fall.

Finally, when a mechanic is working on the mast or something else near the top of the bird and he needs to get into the cabin, he doesn’t have to move the work stand. He can elevate the platform high enough to clear the door. And, although the work stand has cross members beneath the platform for support, the cavity beneath the platform isn’t cluttered, allowing easy access to the cabin.

Tail Platforms. A tail platform has design elements that make it nearly identical to a side platform. The big difference is that, when working on the tail boom, the mechanic might need access to both sides of the aircraft. As such, the working surface of a tail platform is shaped somewhat like a horseshoe. Of course the void in the center of the horseshoe is much wider than the tail of the aircraft. No mechanic wants to risk scratching the paint or puncturing the skin on a $500,000 investment. In a

clever bit of engineering work, the void between the platforms isn’t quite what it appears to be.

The platform is made up of several lengths of rectangular tubing; nested inside of each is a sturdy sliding member, also rectangular, outfitted with a rubber boot. The mechanic advances each slide toward the tail boom, and presto! As the rubber boot contacts the aircraft, the void completely disappears. The mechanic doesn’t have to worry about a misstep or dropping a tool because the platform goes right to the exterior of the aircraft.

Safety Meets Efficiency

The company name emphasizes safety, sometimes rendered as S.A.F.E. Structure Designs, using an acronym derived from its product line description: safe access and fall protection equipment.

“We usually get called after someone gets hurt,” Buscema said. Regrettably, it’s often more than just a twisted ankle from coming down a ladder too quickly. He cited a case in which a mechanic fell from the top of an engine cowling, about 15 ft. from the ground, shattering a hip and an arm. Fatalities among aircraft mechanics aren’t common, but they aren’t unheard of either.

When used with care, a ladder can provide a safe way to access an elevated work area, but working at heights comes with inherent risks. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s incident log has more than 7,000 records related to ladder use over the last 35 years. Certainly ladders have been used safely many more times during the same time period, but this doesn’t negate the many severe incidents and fatalities.

Work platforms can be a big help in this regard. According to Buscema, many helicopter manufacturers have done their own studies and found that, compared with ladders, mobile work platforms reduce safety incidents by 75 percent.

Work platforms provide a substantial boost in efficiency too. The company that does maintenance on the Los Angeles Fire Department’s helicopters found that the time needed to change the rods under the rotors went from four days to two, Buscema said. He estimates that even the most intensive task of all, engine removal, likewise is about 50% faster when using work platforms rather than ladders.

A New Business Model

“When you have knowledge, but no money or equipment, you just work with what you have,” Buscema said. When he was out of a job, he certainly had no money or equipment. He had nothing. No business proposition can be more daunting than starting with nothing, but Buscema’s faith in a higher power and confidence in the future pulled him through.

Starting with nothing seems untenable, but it has an advantage in that it’s liberating. Buscema had no cash, but he also had no debt. He had no building or staff, and he had no bills. He had no contracts, and he had no deadlines. He had no revenue, no receivables, and no profit, yet he wasn’t hemmed in by limitations, obligations, or restrictions. Nothing in the credit column, nothing in the debit column. Nothing but potential.

Free to think about his next step, he credits a divine intervention with an idea for a new business model. He saw a vision of an entirely new way of doing business, a corporate structure that would help run counter to the booms and busts he was accustomed to.

“Most of the work is government work, and it’s very cyclical,” he said. Dealing with extreme peaks and extreme valleys is hard on the business, the business owners, and especially the employees. “In this industry, it’s common to hire and fire workers based on these cycles,” Buscema said.

Rather than building a single shop and filling it with equipment, only to watch it sit idle from time to time, and rather than subjecting his staff to cycles of employment and unemployment, Buscema partners with other fabricators. Although he owns some of the space and SAFE employees are his employees, none of the 19 buildings in which SAFE works have signs indicating SAFE Structure Designs. His business concept stresses cooperation, working in conjunction with other fabricators. When SAFE has lots of orders, his employees dedicate their time to fabricating the frames, handrails, stairs, and decks that become mobile work stands. When SAFE is light on orders, Buscema’s workers contribute their skills to SAFE’s business partners.

In addition to working against the cyclical nature of the business, the shops are geographically dispersed. The capabilities don’t vary from one facility to the next, so any of the shops can build any of the products; building each unit as close to the destination as possible helps to keep control over the shipping cost and time.

A Deep Faith

Although Buscema’s career sounds like periods of success separated by a period of extraordinary failure, Buscema doesn’t see it that way. Not at all. The way he tells the story, the period of unemployment and homelessness was merely a step on a long path. He sees it all as part of a preordained venture, one complete with a test. A test that he passed. He was able to get back on his feet, the state’s attorney didn’t pursue the criminal charge, and he went on to another successful venture.

Buscema credits a deep, abiding faith for his success. Although many keep personal beliefs about religion isolated from professional pursuits, Buscema doesn’t separate the two at all. In the company’s promotional and instructional videos, he often wears a cross that he displays prominently; he wishes blessings at the ends of conversations; and the company’s logo cites John 13:7 (Jesus replied, “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”)

It would be easy to dismiss him as a zealot, but he’d probably take that as a compliment; indeed, one of Christ’s most enthusiastic apostles was Simon the Zealot. Some might call him a member of the God squad. Certainly he’d agree; he’s sure that his success comes from God’s blessings. You could even go so far as to call him a Jesus nut, and he’d just laugh at the coincidence. On some helicopters, the assembly of hardware at the top of the mast—the parts that fasten the rotors to the drive shaft—is held together by a fastener commonly known as the Jesus nut.