Bill Grimm and Jim Davidson, both FAA DER’s, met in 2005 and after discussing what each wanted to accomplish started the process of drawing up the business plan for a new company.

The similarities between Bill's and Jim's aviation backgrounds didn’t seem, at first, to be consistent with a singular focused company.  After discussions Bill and Jim came to the conclusion that what was first thought of being an obstacle to overcome was actually a very strong advantage for a new company.

Bill’s background is engine and Auxiliary Power Unit (APU) systems, mechanical design, and the development and daily operations of FAA Repair Stations.  Jim’s background is military programs, airline heavy and line maintenance support, and supporting FAA STC programs.  Bill has experience with manufacturing operations related to aviation parts and components; Jim has experience with maintaining aircraft and FAA program policies and procedures.  It turned out that the sum of our experiences were very much greater than the experience of the two separately.

The new company size was discussed in detail.  Bill and Jim agreed that keeping the new company small, and highly customer focused was the best approach.  The new company would not compete directly with the huge PMA companies, but rather support small to medium sized companies that have limited PMA part requirements and the need to support legacy aircraft.

The new company, Aircraft Component Design, Inc was started on February 20, 2007 and incorporated in the State of Massachusetts on that day.

The business objective of Aircraft Component Design, Inc (ACDI) was discussed in great detail.  Both Bill and Jim stressed that customer satisfaction would be the primary focus.  Reviewing the strengths of our combined backgrounds, the next priority was decided to be the development of FAA Parts Manufacturing Approval (PMA) for both ACDI and customers.  Thirdly, emphasis on machining aviation parts and components, and involvement in FAA Supplemental Type Certificate (STC) programs was decided.  Another area of focus that ACDI decided to pursue is the development and approval of FAA DER component repairs.

Since the incorporation of ACDI in 2007, ACDI has developed and has received PMA for approximately 40 parts (as of 6/09).  Each month ACDI has been able to capture 3 to 6 PMA projects.  Some PMA projects are property of ACDI, while others are the property of ACDI customers.  ACDI has developed close customer relations which have resulted in ACDI performing all the work required to obtain PMA for our customers.  ACDI has established the trust and confidence of our customers and have performed up to and over their expectations.  ACDI receives the OEM parts, performs the metallurgical analyses, reverse engineering dimensions and tolerances, develops a complete PMA package, submits the package to the FAA and provides PMA package status updates to our customers.  If requested by the customer, ACDI will contract the manufacturing, storage, and shipment of the customer PMA parts.  ACDI has found that our flexibility is very attractive to our customers.

In the first 2 years of operation ACDI has successfully managed and cooperated in nearly 50 PMA projects, has been selected to reverse engineer and manage the development and manufacturing of a Boeing 234 (heavy lift helicopter) APU Electronic Sequence Unit (ESU), and have completed nearly 40 FAA DER component repair approval packages.

ACDI continues to focus on our core PMA, STC and FAA DER Repair technical priorities, supporting our customers at every turn, and will continue to seek PMA growth opportunities for both ACDI and customer needs.  Both Bill and Jim are looking forward to a very bright future as ACDI grows, and will always maintain our core beliefs that the customer always comes first.