Loren Finnerty manages more than 300 shop floor workers and engineers at GE Aerospace’s giant Asheville plant in North Carolina, where thousands of advanced composite components are produced every year for GE jet engines. Finnerty’s ability to grasp fine detail and never lose sight of the bigger picture has earned her a reputation as one of GE’s shop floor gurus. She’s chalked off nearly 20 years at GE businesses, using her engineering, people, and project management skills to enhance safety, motivate teams, and boost production and efficiency everywhere she goes.

Just five years after breaking ground, GE Aviation is investing an additional $105 million in its Asheville, North Carolina, production facility to meet growing demand for the revolutionary ceramic matrix composite (CMC) components produced at the plant. As part of the investment, GE Aviation will create 131 new jobs at the Asheville facility, significantly increasing its workforce of 425 employees.

GE Aviation has never experienced anything like the LEAP production ramp, which will see the Business grow from producing 500 LEAP engines in 2017 to some 2,200 engines per year in 2020 and beyond. To handle the ramp in LEAP production, GE has added more than 1.5 million square-feet of new production and Services footprint, which includes eight new facilities and additions to 10 existing plants.

Have you ever found yourself saying, “If only I had an extra hour in my day”? The length of a day may be fixed, but what if you could somehow optimize to accomplish more in that one day? At GE Aviation, that’s exactly what we’re doing ...

Two of GE Aviation’s new U.S. factories in Lafayette, Indiana; and Asheville, North Carolina; were recently part of media events highlighting the innovative technologies at both operations.

GE Aviation is on the final phase to create its most vertically integrated, new material system ever introduced in the United States. By 2020, GE Aviation is projected to have more than 750 U.S. employees dedicated to its CMC industry.