GE Aerospace says a redesigned fixture and an air bubbler helped halve F404 shaft lead time

LYNN, Mass., Mar. 12, 2026 — GE Aerospace said redesigning one fixture and adding an air bubbler to a wet-blast machine at its Lynn plant removed more than an hour of setup per batch on the F404 engine's turbine-shaft line. With other small changes, it said, shaft lead time fell 49%. Here's what happened, what it cost, and what went wrong.

Cost and outcome (as of Mar. 12, 2026)

Outcome: The changes "contributed to a 49% lead time reduction for the HPT shaft," GE said. (GE Aerospace 2025 annual report letter)
Cost: GE gave no cost for the fixture or bubbler. The fix "eliminated more than an hour of setup time per batch and removed a daily loss of three to five hours from this process." (GE Aerospace 2025 annual report letter)
Date: The annual report was filed with the SEC on Mar. 12, 2026. (SEC EDGAR, filed Mar. 12, 2026)

The bottleneck

Lynn "designs, produces, assembles, and tests military and commercial aircraft engines — including the F404," GE said. Using FLIGHT DECK, its lean operating model, the team found bottlenecks on the F404 HPT shaft line in "shot peen, wet blast (a surface finishing process), and turning operations." (GE Aerospace 2025 annual report letter)

"During wet blast, media would settle at the bottom of the machine, causing an hour of lost time each time they ran parts through," the letter said. "In November, the team focused on redesigning the fixture and installed an air bubbler to prevent settling." (GE Aerospace 2025 annual report letter)

GE called it "one small improvement," and said it was "combined with other similar changes across the value stream." (GE Aerospace 2025 annual report letter)

Why GE led with small fixes

Chairman and CEO H. Lawrence Culp Jr. opened the letter with another shop-floor fix: at Terre Haute, Ind., a team asked for an electronic tape dispenser to replace cutting tape with a utility knife on the LEAP turbine center frame line. The plant leader, Gerald Beuvelet, first asked for "extensive justification," then bought it "on the spot." (GE Aerospace 2025 annual report letter)

That line's on-time delivery was 20% in 2023 and is 96% today, GE said, though it noted "one tape dispenser did not solve all the challenges at the site." (GE Aerospace 2025 annual report letter)

At a supplier making brazed honeycomb assemblies for LEAP, a 40-person kaizen team found four constraints and lifted average output from 47 pieces a week to more than 470, GE said. (GE Aerospace 2025 annual report letter)

"It's the little details that are vital," Culp wrote, quoting basketball coach John Wooden, and listed "One tape dispenser. One test cell. One hour removed from a process." (GE Aerospace 2025 annual report letter)

The wider numbers

GE said total engine deliveries rose 26% in 2025, with LEAP deliveries up 28% and defense deliveries up 30%. Operating profit rose 25% to $9.1 billion, a non-GAAP figure. (GE Aerospace 2025 annual report letter)

GE said its 57,000 employees focus on "safety, quality, delivery, and cost (SQDC), always in that order," and that material input from priority suppliers grew 40% in 2025, after it began deploying FLIGHT DECK and its engineers into the supply base. (GE Aerospace 2025 annual report letter)

What went wrong

The waste ran for years. Settling media cost "an hour of lost time each time they ran parts through" until the fix. GE doesn't say for how long. (GE Aerospace 2025 annual report letter)
Shared credit. The 49% is the fixture "combined with other similar changes," so its own share isn't given. (GE Aerospace 2025 annual report letter)
No year or baseline. The letter says "in November" and gives no lead time in days. (GE Aerospace 2025 annual report letter)
What we don't know yet: the shaft's lead time before and after, in days, and whether the gain has held.

Our follow-up question for GE Aerospace

What was the F404 HPT shaft lead time in days before and after, and how much of the 49% came from the wet-blast fix?

Sources

GE Aerospace, 2025 Annual Report, shareholder letter by H. Lawrence Culp Jr. geaerospace.com
U.S. SEC EDGAR, GE Aerospace form ARS (2025 annual report to security holders), filed Mar. 12, 2026, accession 0000040545-26-000020. sec.gov

Disclosure: [not in copy] Editor placeholder