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spk01: Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. My name is Abby and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Barnes second quarter 2023 earnings conference call and webcast. Today's conference is being recorded and all lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press the star key followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star 1 a second time. Thank you, and I will now turn the conference over to Bill Pitts, Vice President of Investor Relations. You may begin.
spk00: Thank you, Abby. Good morning, and thank you for joining us for our second quarter 2023 earnings call. With me are Barnes President and Chief Executive Officer Thomas Hook and Senior Vice President Finance and Chief Financial Officer Julie Stryke. If you have not received a copy of our earnings press release, you can find it on the investor relations section of our corporate website at onebarnes.com. That's O-N-E-B-A-R-N-E-S dot com. During our call, we will be referring to the earnings release supplement slides, which are also posted on our website. Our discussion today includes certain non-GAAP financial measures which provide additional information we believe is helpful to investors. These measures have been reconciled to the related GAAP measures in accordance with SEC regulations. You will find a reconciliation table on our website as part of our press release and in the form AK submitted to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Be advised that certain statements we make on today's call both during the opening remarks and during the question and answer session, may be forward-looking statements as defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Please consider the risks and uncertainties that are mentioned in today's call and that are described in our periodic filings with the SEC. These filings are available through the investor relations section of our corporate website at onebarns.com. Let me now turn the call over to Tom for his opening remarks. Then Julie will provide a review of our financial performance and details of our updated 2023 outlook. After that, we will open up the call for questions. Tom? Thank you, Bill, and good morning, everybody.
spk03: I'd just like to... Start first by wishing my wife Bethann a happy birthday. Barnes delivered a good performance in the second quarter, generating top line growth and improvement in adjusted operating income and margin. The team accomplished this while simultaneously advancing the substantial transformation underway at Barnes. Our progress is encouraging, although asymmetric across the company. And there remain further opportunities to drive our integrate, consolidate and rationalize optimization strategy. Our multi-phased initiative to improve core business execution continues and some early progress can be seen in the improved industrial results in the quarter. While industrial performance is not at the desired level, there is movement in the right direction. For the time being, I am taking a more active role with each industrial SBU and I have temporarily assume the molding solutions president role while the ultimate organization structure for industrial is under development when settled it will be an efficient structure built to support the execution of our strategic plans for industrial organic orders were flat as compared to a year ago though booked bill was approximately 1.1 times from a macro standpoint trends we have discussed previously are still visible with several end markets performing well and others seeing ongoing challenges. Automation has delivered an increase in sequential revenues for three quarters in a row, and our multi-cavity mold systems business continues to be strong. On the other hand, our automotive hot runners and sheet metal forming product lines have seen weakness. Across industrial markets, China has been particularly soft. Julie will touch upon SBU highlights in a moment. There is a rich organic growth opportunity at Industrial, and we are redirecting our sales efforts to drive a strong, vibrant sales funnel, focusing on improved commercial practices and a new customer acquisition. Building that commercial pipeline is a key step to generating the performance we expect from the business. At Aerospace, the market remains very favorable. Our OEM business will benefit from ongoing production rate increases by both Boeing and Airbus. In the aftermarket, we continue to deliver strong sales growth given improved passenger traffic and the resurgence of wide-body activity. Clearly, the market vibrancy supports our aerospace strategy to enhance, focus, and grow this business. In support of our strategy to grow our military aftermarket business, we have reached an agreement with Blue Raven to provide U.S. military aftermarket distribution support for Barnes Aerospace products and services. This agreement will help grow our U.S. military aftermarket business through Blue Raven's tech enabled, scalable supply chain solutions. While top line performance at Aerospace has been particularly good, we did take a step back with respect to adjusted operating margin performance in the second quarter. There are two factors driving this dynamic. First, we have experienced productivity challenges in some facilities. These challenges are within our control and are actively being addressed. Second, within OEM, we experienced a product mix impact on margin resulting from less fabrication work and more machining. That said, I am pleased with the overall performance and direction of our aerospace business and expect our margin performance to get back on track in the second half. Before I conclude my remarks, I'd like to provide an update on our pending acquisition with MB Aerospace. MB Aerospace is an exceptional strategic fit for Barnes Aerospace with highly complementary programs, global operation, technical capabilities, and product and services offerings. The transaction is progressing as expected through the regulatory approval process, and we anticipate closing the transaction before the end of the year. Upon closing, We will immediately begin integration and driving organizational synergies. At that time, we will also be able to share more detailed financial and operational aspects of the combined business. We're excited about the acquisition and like the balance it brings to our portfolio. To close my prepared remarks, our actions across the company target the core business performance improvement we expect to deliver. These actions, whether transformation related or acquisition integrated related, are all part of the same value equation there is considerable work in progress and still much more to do however we have the systems investments and global team to execute these simultaneous objectives we're on the appropriate path and our commitment to the process is unwavering let me now pass the call over to julie for a discussion of our second quarter performance as well as some end market color good morning everyone and thank you tom
spk02: Let me begin with highlights of our second quarter results on slide four of our supplement. Second quarter sales were $339 million, up 6% from the prior year period, with organic sales increasing 5%. Foreign exchange had a modest favorable impact on sales. Adjusted operating income was $43.5 million this year, 8% from $40.1 million a year ago. An adjusted operating margin of 12.8% was up 30 basis points. Net income was $17.4 million or $0.34 per diluted share compared to a net loss of $39.6 million or negative $0.78 per diluted share a year ago. On an adjusted basis, Net income per share of 58 cents was up 4% from 56 cents a year ago. Adjusted net income per share in the second quarter of 2023 excludes 19 cents of restructuring and transformation-related charges and 5 cents of acquisition-related charges. Last year's adjusted net income per share excludes a goodwill impairment charge of $1.34. Interest expense was 6.5 million, an increase of 3.2 million due to a higher average interest rate. Other income was 2.9 million, up 2.5 million from last year, driven by an increase in non-operating pension income. The effective tax rate in the second quarter of 2023 was 22.5%, compared to negative 27.1% in the year-ago period and 64.7% for the full year 2022. The decrease in the second quarter 2023 effective tax rate from the full year 2022 rate is primarily due to the absence of a goodwill impairment charge, which is not tax deductible for book purposes. Now I'll turn to our segment performance, beginning with industrial. For the second quarter, sales were $217 million, up 2% from the prior year period. Similarly, organic sales increased approximately 2%. Favorable corn exchange was a modest positive to sales. Industrials operating profit was 9.4 million versus a loss of 48.7 million a year ago. Excluding 13.4 million of restructuring and transformation related charges in the current year, adjusted operating profit of 22.8 million was up 17% and adjusted operating margin of 10.5% was up 130 basis points. Adjusted operating profit benefited from positive pricing and favorable productivity. With respect to orders and sales for the quarter across our industrial businesses, molding solutions organic orders increased 6%, while organic sales decreased 2%. Our multi-cavity mold systems product line was once again solid, with personal care and general industrial end markets propelling orders and medical, personal care, and general industrial lifting the sales. These were offset by weakness in our hot runner product line serving automotive end markets. For 2023, we now expect Molding Solutions organic sales to increase low single digits down slightly from our prior expectation. At Motion Control Solutions, organic orders were down 5% in the quarter, while organic sales grew 4%. As was the case last quarter, we saw good orders and sales driven by transportation related end markets, while we saw softness in the sheet metal forming end market. We continue to forecast mid single digit organic sales growth for MCS in 2023. At automation, Our organic orders were down 3%, while organic sales increased 5%. We expect high single-digit organic sales growth for automation in 2023, unchanged from our prior view. For the industrial segment, we anticipate low to mid-single-digit organic sales growth for 2023, with adjusted operating margin between 9.5% to 10.5%. the latter consistent with our previous outlook. At aerospace, sales were $122 million, up 12% from a year ago. OEM sales grew 8%, while aftermarket sales grew by 18% in total. Within the aftermarket, MRO was up 26% and spare parts were up 7%. Operating profit was $16.6 million, down 19%. Excluding restructuring and transformation-related charges of $0.5 million and MV Aerospace acquisition-related charges of $3.6 million, adjusted operating profit was $20.7 million, essentially flat year-over-year. Adjusted operating margin was 17%. down 190 basis points from a year ago. As Tom mentioned, adjusted operating profit and margin were impacted by unfavorable productivity and product mix within the OEM business, offset in part by the benefits of higher sales volume. OEM orders were down 18% in the quarter, though that relates to the lumpiness of order patterns and is not concerning. Book to bill was 1.2 times in the quarter and 1.5 times in the first half, so a healthy order level. Our OEM backlog grew to $805 million, an increase of 2% sequentially from March 2023 and up 7% as compared to a year ago. We expect to convert approximately 50% of this backlog to revenue over the next 12 months. Our OEM sales outlook for 2023 is up low 20%, a more favorable view than our April outlook. For the aftermarket, we forecast 2023 growth of mid-teens for MRO and low double digits for spare parts, both representing an increase from our prior view. Our forecast for aerospace adjusted operating margin is approximately 18%. a small downtick from our prior view. With respect to cash, first half cash provided by operating activities was $42 million versus $9 million in the prior year period. The primary drivers continue to be from lower paid incentive compensation in 2023 relative to 2022 and a lower change in working capital compared to the prior year period. Free cash flow was $21 million versus a negative $5 million last year, and capital expenditures were $22 million, up approximately $8 million from the prior year. With our balance sheet, the debt to EBITDA ratio, as defined by our credit agreement, was 2.56 times at quarter end. When considering our cash position at the end of the second quarter on a net debt to EBITDA basis, we'd be approximately 2.2 times. Our second quarter average diluted shares outstanding were 51.2 million shares and period end shares outstanding were 50.6 million shares. During the quarter, we did not repurchase any shares. Turning to slide six of our supplement, let me share details of our updated outlook for 2023. We now expect organic sales to be up 7% to 9% for the year, with adjusted operating margin between 12.5% and 13.5%. We continue to expect adjusted EPS in the range of $2.15 to $2.30, up 9% to 16% from 2022's adjusted earnings of $1.98 per share. 2023 adjusted earnings per share are anticipated to exclude $0.54 from the restructuring and transformation related activities announced to date and $0.08 related to the pending MB aerospace acquisition. We estimate the remaining adjustments to be $0.10 in Q3 and $0.07 in Q4. Please note that the closing and other deal costs associated with the pending MV aerospace acquisition are not included in our outlook. Like last year, we do expect adjusted EPS in the third quarter to be lower than that of the second quarter by a few cents. A few other outlook items. Interest expense is anticipated to be approximately 26 million and other income to be approximately 1 million. Please note, this excludes $1.4 million of pension income attributable to our restructuring activities. We anticipate a full year effective tax rate between 24% and 25%, capex of approximately $50 million, average diluted shares of approximately $51 million, and cash conversion of approximately 100%. In closing, we generated good second quarter results. and our transformation efforts remain on track. That said, we see pockets of suboptimal productivity and the pace of working capital improvement hasn't gained sufficient traction. We are actively addressing both of these items with our focus on driving revenues, managing working capital, and delivering core business execution. Operator, we will now open the call for questions.
spk01: Thank you. At this time, I would like to remind everyone in order to ask a question, press star then the number one on your telephone keypad, and we will pause for just a moment to compile the Q&A roster. We will take our first question from Matt Somerville with DA Davidson. Your line is open.
spk08: Thanks. Good morning. Tom, can you maybe expand a little bit on the productivity issues you encountered in aerospace maybe triangulate a little bit on exactly kind of what they were and why you feel maybe they're transitory in nature. And then maybe, Julie, if you can comment on how much you think that weighed on margins in the quarter and then have a follow-up.
spk03: Sure, Matt. So in aerospace, we run a series of facilities across North America and Asia. And in some of our facilities that have seen a significant amount of new employee hiring, and we've attempted to smooth out train and ramp production. We've run into inefficient operations. They're all things within our control through training, development, and obviously leadership and management of the facility-led. We're putting the improvements in place, but those productivity challenges are part of the ramp difficulties and headwinds that we've experienced. Not all facilities. have experienced these productivity challenges. We've had good ramps through the recovery of the aerospace industry. We've been able to hire and train and onboard people effectively. But two facilities have struggled with that since the recovery from the pandemic. And while we have the teams on board and are still hiring people, we're still struggling with getting the teams efficient and productive from a productivity standpoint. And that was one of the reasons that we saw a drag on aerospace profitability in the quarter. And we expect to have that corrected in the second half of the year with regards to the productivity in the facilities progressively over the course of the next two quarters. But we'll get ourselves on a more productive track over the balance of the year. But we won't fully recover from the performance we've had in the second quarter.
spk05: It'll take another several quarters to get there.
spk08: And then as a follow-up, you maybe talk about the magnitude of pricing you're realizing in industrial. Is there still more to be had relative to what you saw in Q2? And can you also remind just the timing of the cost savings cadence associated with your multi-phase restructuring there and whether or not any of that has changed? Thank you.
spk03: Yeah. address pricing first. Since last year, we've been on a progressive and continuous journey with regards to pricing to reflect the inflationary push-throughs, both on labor and materials, freight, energy, and other factors. So given over the past year that we've had a lot of that, some $40-plus million hit us in terms of inflationary effects, we've been pricing to offset that in the industrial business As you know, in aerospace, we have more contractual hedges against inflationary pressures, particularly on the material side. But in industrial, we do not. So it's a negotiated item. My expectations are for price. We will continue to prospectively adopt practices with regards to price mitigations with our customers. So the current deployment plans are still precipitating into our delivered financial results and prospectively on a go-forward basis. We will continue to manage pricing very carefully with our industrial customers to reflect costs appropriately for them. Of course, in parallel with that, we also do productivity efforts across industrial to make sure that we're holding ourselves accountable for efficiency gains within the business as well. But you can expect that there'll be continued price effects going forward in industrial in response to what we see is still an inflationary environment globally in a lot of markets. Part of that will be passed on to customers in pricing. Some of it will be on the average selling prices, and some will be in surcharges, depending on what the inflationary effect is. We expect to be able to offset that somewhat with operational productivity at the same time. With regard to the three phases of the cadence, I'll let Julie go through the know the financial the number summary for it but those programs remain on track we've been very satisfied through the first two phases that are coming to fruition we've seen several products reach key milestones in the second quarter and it's going to continue to be on track and on time they've been meeting their timeline and their cost savings objectives phase three as you know is got announced earlier in the year is in the rolling out phase and implementation phase, but there's several years left to go on that cadence for the phase three initiatives. But we do expect to hit the cost savings targets and the milestones for 2023 as previously committed on all the programs. Julie?
spk02: Yeah, yeah. And picking up Matt, so what we had previously stated and remains the same is that we expect run rate savings coming out of this year at around 2020. 22 million. That's a slight uptick now that we've announced the phase three initiatives. Then we would be looking for about 43 million run rate out of 24 and peaking at the 53 million we previously stated in 2025. Got it.
spk05: Thanks, guys.
spk01: Yeah, no worries. And we will take our next question from Christopher Glenn with Oppenheimer. Your line is open.
spk04: Thanks. Good morning, guys. So, Tom, I was curious, you mentioned taking over the leadership seat in molding solutions. Was that an unexpected development? Just curious how that came about.
spk03: Yeah, certainly, Chris, as you may remember, a lot of my background over the last several decades has been in molding. So I have kind of unique insights into the market from previous work experience. So in stepping in when Steve Moore transitioned, there was an interim leader in the molding solutions business that was somebody that was non-operational. So as given the In my mind, the need to integrate, consolidate, and rationalize our molding solutions, SBU, I elected to step into that role and manage that business directly, temporarily, for a short period of time to help strategically get that progression into the right direction. And we're actively recruiting for a leader that will end up running that business from an integrated standpoint. going forward. We expect to have that completed here by the end of the year, but given its importance to barns and given my multi decades of experience in molding, I felt it was pivotal for us to get some significant traction there immediately.
spk05: That makes a lot of sense.
spk04: And then How would you describe the industrial portfolio now in terms of composition? Obviously, molding solutions is very core. I wouldn't claim to be aware of all the slices and composition of your industrial components, but I know there's been some rationalization episodes in the past. And divestitures are always part of a strategy or often part of a strategy when a company's retooling a segment to the extent you are. So curious if you could comment on that.
spk03: Certainly, Chris, as you would know, that we are always actively assessing our strategy in the company on an active basis at the management level as well as with the board of directors and partnership. you know, process has continued under my tenure over the last year as the chief executive officer. I'm with Steve Moore's departure as the leader of industrial. It's allowed me a kind of a unique set of insights into the underlying SBUs and understanding of the SBUs within the industrial business and very carefully assessing, in particular, their go-to-market strategies to drive commercial pipeline and top-line growth. And focusing on commercial execution primarily to drive top line, bottom line, pipeline performance for those SBUs. As part of that, we're also looking at end market strengths and where we should be investing. There are investing choices to make in terms of emphasizing higher growth markets, like we pointed out in the call, medical technologies, biotechnologies, consumer packaged goods. So we've been shifting our commercial teams focus for those areas where the growth is good. You can see in some of the automotive aftermarket, excuse me, automotive hot runner market that we've not seen as strong of a market. Hence, we've been in more competitive struggles and particularly in Asia in those markets. So we are making investment choices based on health of our operations and health of our business and positioning our product lines. But in fairness, we're also looking at the strategic balance across the portfolio, where we are today and where it should be in the future. Nothing to communicate there other than it's under active operational and strategic assessment and has been over the past year of my tenure within the company.
spk04: Thank you. Last one. Any...
spk03: issues related to the crack quality issues any any direct exposure in the current portfolio or prospectively um in the current portfolio we you know barnes does not have any gtf content so no direct exposure and we would uh you know not anticipate that the nb aero would have any um you know direct impact given that their this is on the oen content side and pride also communicated their current production rates and plans are not changing so it's obviously we haven't closed that deal yet so we don't have complete perfect line of sight but uh overall we uh think that the uh both the current you know barnes portfolio and aerospace will have no impact in the prospective portfolio post the MBRO space acquisition. We think that the production rates for the GTF for Pratt will be the same for MBRO.
spk05: Thank you very much.
spk01: And we will take our next question from Miles Walton with Wolf Research. Your line is open.
spk06: Thanks. Good morning.
spk01: Good morning, Miles.
spk06: I was hoping to maybe touch on aerospace first, and in particular the growth rate for OEM, up low 20s for the full year. I think year-to-date you're at plus 10, and you're talking about some productivity challenges. So I'm just curious, what is causing the acceleration there? The orders you pointed to are lumpy, but still they weren't necessarily in the quarter pointing to acceleration in the second half. Maybe just talk to the confidence on the OEM side.
spk03: Yeah, sure. Well, the market, obviously, fundamentally, Miles, is extremely healthy. We've done an excellent job of partnering with our OEM customers. And the feedback from all those customers, both our current customers and prospective new customers with the acquisition, have been highly supportive of the direction we're going with the combination of Barnes Aerospace with MB Aerospace. We've done an a solid job in terms of operational performance and delivery for our OEMs. And that has really opened up a lot of opportunities, given the prospective close of EMB Aerospace acquisition later in the year. We have a lot of good strategic dialogues with customers. We have been, through the COVID period, a significant re-employment of large operating teams globally. That has, you know, we've struggled first to fill the positions. Second, we've been struggling, as you know, in the first half of the year with training, educating, and getting those positions productive. We continue to struggle with that in several facilities with getting productive output. And there's a balance between how much we can output. We don't want our cost of poor quality to be high, and we don't want our scrap to be high. So there's a rate at which we can launch and ramp the business based on those workforce training and onboarding. There's a lot of work in these areas that are being done internally to allow us to have better output. So my expectation is as those continue to get implemented and are proven out, we'll continue to improve our output performance and we'll continue to ramp the business consistent with the industry. I think from an order perspective, as you know, that orders tend to be lumpy quarter to quarter. But from an overall standpoint, we've had a good start to orders for the year already, and we would expect that to continue into the second half. We're in the process of negotiating many large partnerships with OEMs as we continuously do in updating those and refreshing those, and we expect to have more of that to communicate over the balance of the year. So both on the orders side as well as the revenue side, we expect strong trajectories in aerospace based on our performance. based on the industry recovery. And I think that's going to be not just an OEM effect. I think with the higher number of single-eye airplanes flying and also the recovery of wide-body from the international travel, we also expect that we're going to see the continued recovery on the wide-body side, which is favorable to us also. So I think there's a combination of effects that will drive the second half. And as you know, because we're broadly linked into the industry, it will be even more broadly linked following the MD Aerospace acquisition. We actually feel really well balanced across customers' portfolios and geographies. We're confident of that second half recovery.
spk06: Maybe just to ask it a different way, I just wanted to make sure I have the numbers right. The first half was 10% growth. The second half, you have to be at 30% growth. And I understand there's slightly easier comps, but obviously it's a big step function still in absolute terms in the second half. Those are the right numbers, though, right?
spk09: Yes.
spk03: I'll let Julie answer the numbers question, but yes, that's year from a comp standpoint is year correct.
spk02: Yeah, we continue to see the second half building over the first half when you look year over year. So last year, from a sales perspective, sales were relatively flat throughout the course of the year, and we've seen clearly the 10% bump. in the first half and based on our order book and deliveries, we are a comfortable with the capacity. A lot of it will be at our Windsor and our Singapore OEM facilities. And we have the backlog to get that out the door.
spk06: Okay. And the converse to the question is on the margin side, if you do that, why doesn't that put more pressure on your margins in the second half of the year? But the guidance obviously implies a pretty nice improvement in margins in the second half of the year.
spk03: I mean, I'll give you a top line answer and let Julie answer the numbers. There's a combination of effects. There's productivity efforts within across all of aerospace at every single facility driving underlying productivity within the individual operational sites. But in combination with that, as you know, we also ended up having initiatives that we've running to renegotiate commercial terms with customers, as well as to ramp output. And there's certainly, to your point, Miles, a mixed effect that happens across the product portfolio that we've seen in the second quarter. However, we also have these productivity offsets in commercial negotiations that go in parallel with those things. So the projections we've given is our expectations of productivity and those commercial renegotiations in combination with the ramp that occurs. And then that effect is, you know, we expect to see the mitigation against the mixed effect based on those factors being, you know, on a tailwind for us as we execute them. We do have confidence we're executing them on schedule.
spk02: Yeah, and just to build on what Tom said, from a finer point, in addition to the proactive productivity we're getting through all of the commercial dialogues, expected improvements in productivity as our labor force in certain facilities comes up to speed, we'll have the natural benefit of absorption of overhead via enhanced productivity, via enhanced production output, which also helps on that front.
spk06: Okay. All right. Well, thanks so much.
spk01: We will take our next question from Michael Cermoli with Truist Securities. Your line is open.
spk07: Hey, good morning, guys. Thanks for taking the question. Maybe – how are you guys? Julie, just to put a finer point on Matt's question on the run rate savings, just I guess for modeling purposes here, you know, 43 million, you know, run rate on top of – you know, I guess looking into next year, you know, and kind of the trajectory of margins and, you know, assuming you're capturing some of that savings this year. But I mean, you know, it seems like there's going to be a pretty big step up in margins, which is just with that kind of savings, not even accounting for maybe incremental volumes in aerospace. But is that how we should be kind of looking at this kind of maybe, you know, some significant margin expansion as we move into next year?
spk03: It's project-based, Michael. If we step back and think of the phases we've announced, Phase 1, 2, and 3, in that we've communicated some pretty large-scale projects. The closure of facilities we've had globally in Barnes Industrial that are already underway in reaching their know their completion in 2023 so as we exit 2023 we'll be getting more of a full year effect of those savings you know facilities we had in switzerland facilities we've had sterling virginia bristol connecticut as well as in germany and our benzines inventive operations each one of those will end up um you know coming to completion and drive savings on a full year basis as we get into 2024 i'll let you know kind of julie kind of go down you know a little bit more detail on the on the timing effects of those but a lot of the of the savings that drive in 24 for products that are being executed in 22 and 23 they're just getting four years effects of the savings to drive the margin effects of course as you know okay there's products that are starting execution in 23 they've been executing in 24 for savings in 25 but is Julie can give you a little bit more of a qualitative and quantitative feel on how that looks as the quarters progress.
spk02: So I think, Mike, from a modeling perspective, it's fair coming out of 2023 to model in that, you know, 22-ish million dollar number that I mentioned earlier. And then... Throughout 2024, we would ramp to exit the year, so enter 2025 with the $43 million, and then ramp up to the $53 million in 2025. I'm not giving quarterly estimates for 2024 yet for obvious reasons, but to date, things have been tracking, as we mentioned, and we've all been heard about or been involved in these projects before, but they're being managed effectively and we intend to keep total transparency about how they're progressing. So, at this point in time, as Tom mentioned, things are progressing to plan and you should be okay modeling those effects in.
spk07: Okay, and then just back to aerospace, you know, what You know, I guess we've been sort of in recovery mode here. You know, there have been bottlenecks around engines. Presumably your volumes have been elevated. Did anything, you know, sort of happen recently for this to manifest now with the labor and productivity? And then, you know, we've heard recently from Boeing and Airbus where they want to take rates. I mean, do you have the labor in place to keep up with the OEM production and presumably a strong aftermarket as well?
spk03: Well, Michael, excellent question. I think your question, obviously, is very important because it connotates continued growth within the industry, which is a positive factor for us from OEM all the way through aftermarket. But what that requires us to do to maintain the pace of the demand output both to OEM and aftermarket is for us to add production capacity and add direct and indirect labor now and train it and get it capable of increasing output that in and of itself that incremental labor which tends to come with uh not as much you know training and uh we have there's a training lag that has to occur to the higher that growth demand we've had to get ourselves you know an inflection point of catching up which we've been doing all year on productive operations by onboarding more labor. That's been a headwind that we've had to face. It has affected our numbers in the second quarter. We're jumping ahead of it with more aggressive leadership and management. Some facilities, in fairness, have already mastered that productivity training dilemma, but several facilities have not, which has created the drag, and our expectations are we will fix that over the course of the second half and get ahead of that so we can maintain our output at what the industry is ramping towards. We're very well aware of the ramp. We have clear signal from our customers on what it looks like. So we're doing all the operational things in terms of property plant equipment and workforce to be prepared for it. It's a you'd expect growth is its own set of challenges in the aerospace side. And we don't want to be a lagger. We're not holding up any of our customers today. So we're very purposely making sure that the customer is taken care of. We've done a very good job of that, but it is a headwind in terms of profitability that we've had to face that we knew was coming.
spk05: We just didn't proactively manage it at all the facilities as well as we should have. Got it. That's helpful. I'll jump back in the queue. Thanks, guys.
spk01: Thanks, Mike. And there are no further questions at this time. I will turn the call back to Mr. Bill Pitts for closing remarks.
spk00: Thank you, Abby. We'd like to thank all of you for joining us this morning, and we look forward to speaking with you next in October for our third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. Abby, we will now conclude today's call.
spk01: Thank you. And ladies and gentlemen, once again, this concludes today's conference call, and we thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.
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