MAVE Aeronáutica, leader in quality services
The company from Cádiz has become the prime quality service model for aerospace enterprises, involving works in the development phase as well as in the production phase. With 12 million euros of turnover and more than 200 employees, MAVE is committed to specialization as key part of its growth and expansion at the international level. The enterprise has stable presence in England, Germany, Australia and Indonesia, where is working with main customers within the sector"
It was in 2000 when the aerospace industry started to develop strongly. It was the time of the big expansion in Europe: first CASA and then the giant Airbus. An air of entrepreneurship started to hang over the atmosphere in Spain and in France and many professionals started to realize that they could collaborate with this development from outside of the big company. In addition, in Andalusia this favourable atmosphere was enhanced with one positive factor: a hundred-year-old aerospace tradition. It was in that context that Joaquin Arregui spun off into his own business and set up MAVE in 2001 with eight employees.
Since then more than ten years have gone by and today MAVE can brag about employing more than 200 people and notably about being the firm of reference for the aerospace industry in the area of Quality Assurance, Maintenance and Periodical Revisions of Tooling, Calibration and Control of Quality. “We are the quality supplier of reference within the aerospace industry”, states MAVE’s general director, Carlos María-Tomé. He is proud of having reached a turnover of 12 million euros in the last year and working for companies such as Airbus, EADS, Aernnova, Alestis, Aciturri, Sofitec, CESA, Inespasa, Carbures, Infasur, LTK, MP, M Torres, Aritex, Tecnatom, Burdinberri, Alten and SMA, among others. We just have to look over MAVE’s customer portfolio to identify the prime entitled names of the Spanish and Andalusian aerospace industry.
According to its general director, this successful evolution is resulted from a variety of key reasons. First, being able to understand and take advantage of a market opportunity within the aerospace industry. At the time, quality was an area which wasn’t traditionally subcontracted, but the logic evolution entailed its outsourcing, looking for better business effectiveness as it was happening in the rest of the world, by the way. “We are part of a market where big companies are increasingly bigger and financially more powerful and they demand specialization. It’s this demand that we took advantage of”, explains Carlos María-Tomé.
The opportunity was there, but it had to be shifted towards strength and this is what MAVE have been doing in the course of all these years with a recipe that its manager director explains this way: “doing things well, trying to give more and better than competitors and matching up to what the market was requiring: specialization”. Behind this firm commitment to satisfying this demand for specialization is what María-Tomé considers to be key and essential pillar within his company: human resources training”.
“If you want to deliver specialization, you have to choose very well your people and be devoted to train them, giving absolute priority to this objective. That’s why in MAVE we provide customized training, to let them adapt to any type of task required by the market. If we provide quality services we understand that our people are the most important asset and we never forget about it in our company”.
In MAVE we provide customized training to let our employees get adapted to any kind of task required by the market. Our people are our main asset and we never forget about it"
Together with this nature, MAVE still has its original headquarters in Cadiz, curiously on the site of the former factory CASA, although it also has offices in Seville and Madrid, both of them led by an operation manager. The “landing” in Seville took place in 2002, when the organization was reinforced with the incorporation of Carlos María-Tomé, who came from CASA. Then, in 2007, they took the big leap to the capital of Spain, and later, the company sent a team to Illescas where inspection of large parts is supplied. Now they also have stable presence in England, Germany as well as in Australia and Indonesia, confirming their international expansion within an increasingly global market.
This territorial growth has been driven together with an increasing participation in the main aerospace programmes, involving the project phase as well as the serial production phase. Like this, the A400M has entailed a strong growth for the company as well as the A380, A350 and notably the A330 MRTT. MAVE started participating in this programme with three people for two months and now they have sent 50 people who have been working there for five years.
Aerospace specialization
In fact, this territorial expansion and commitment to prime programmes represents the most important way of growth for MAVE, which has opted for specialization instead of the diversification strategy driven by other companies, since “it is such a sensitive and delicate area” explains the general director. The company supplies quality services, which it does, in its two levels: development phase and production phase.
The company is mainly focused (55%) on the area of “Aeronautical Components Quality Inspection” which involves receiving inspections, aeronautical assembly and components; quality inspection of aeronautical parts (metallic, carbon fiber…); quality inspection of structures and assembly; QA inspections FAL & LV and QA inspections FTC & CAP. 35% of the activity is focused on the area of “Tooling Quality and Aeronautical Production Tools and Hardware”, where the company provides services of mechanical preventive maintenance, periodical revisions with laser tracker, forecasted or sporadic relocation of aeronautical tools, integral relocation of big jigs, maintenance and special tooling, reception of tools, quality inspections of tools, measurement, reports, analysis of deviations with laser tracker, numerical control tool machine calibration with laser tracker and interferometer.
Lastly, the area of “Quality Engineering and Customer Quality” is composed by the remaining 15% of the activity and provides services related to the field of quality systems ISO9001, UNE-EN9100 and environmental certification ISO14001,supervision of quality systems EN9100, sampling quality process and products suppliers, quality processes, know how, management of NC´s, AC´s, ID´s, management quality engineering, KPI´s, audits, certifications and qualifications, quality documentation, quality planning and control of configuration.
