The Leonardo Award is bestowed by FACC for outstanding innovations implemented in the past year. This year marks the seventh edition of the award. The winning team was honored for a project that has significantly increased vertical integration at FACC, thus making the company less dependent on global developments.

This year, a total of 21 teams from all FACC locations submitted their projects and ideas which had made a significant contribution to FACC's growth and strategic further development. The Leonardo Award committee selected five finalists who proved to be groundbreaking for the company as a whole. At the annual FACC Christmas party last Saturday, all five finalists were introduced and the winning team announced. This year, too, FACC received a wide variety of high-quality Leonardo submissions, ranging from technical innovations to measures to increase efficiency and new work processes.

"Leonardo projects are flagships that represent the innovative strength of the FACC crew. We have become one of the top aerospace companies in the world thanks to the ideas and solutions developed by our team. They allow us to score internationally due to their uniqueness, or with resulting innovations," explains CEO Robert Machtlinger, thus underlining the significance of the award.

Leonardo 2022 awarded to project team for I4.0 manufacturing of metal components

This year's coveted award went to the "Vertical Integration Metal Machining" project team, which was able to set up the production of aluminum components within a short period of time. Whereas FACC previously sourced metal components from global suppliers, it now manufactures them in-house in Upper Austria - an important strategic step for the company, as this makes it independent of suppliers, resulting in greater price stability and supply reliability. Overall, the costs for metal manufacturing have been significantly reduced. The greenfield project "Vertical Integration" is based on I4.0 processes and enables the fully automated production of high-precision aerospace components. The project team was able to acquire the necessary know-how in record time, and has created an automated production line for metal lightweight components for the aerospace industry.

"Our increasing production volumes call for a systematic further development of our manufacturing processes using state-of-the-art equipment and procedures. In this way, we are able to ensure continuous product improvements, seamless component control and thus the highest component quality," adds project manager Stefan Ranzmaier.

Team spirit as a decisive selection criterion

In addition to the added value for the company, team spirit is also an important factor when it comes to selecting the winning team. The points system used reflects FACC's core values, and is divided into four categories: appreciation, success, performance, and team spirit. After all, for success to be lasting and sustainable, it has to be developed and implemented together.