the nature of united technologies /  utc fuel cells UTC Fuel Cells Fireflies are self-contained,  all-natural energy producers that generate remarkable performance out of all proportion to their size…  just like a fuel cell system. equipment on each of the shuttle’s three main engines. The new turbopumps, which have fewer welds, stronger bearings and other features that improve safety and extend service life, are produced at Pratt & Whitney’s Space Propulsion facility in West Palm Beach, Florida. The company also supplies 16 booster separation motors for each shuttle launch. These motors are produced at the Space Propulsion facility in San Jose, California. Productivity, as measured by net income per employee, rose nearly 13 percent on a reported basis in 2002 compared with 2001 and has increased cumulatively by 164 percent since 1995. Credit goes in no small part to UTC’s Achieving Competitive Excellence (ACE) program, which enhances work flow by identifying and eliminating the root causes of waste. In 2002, Pratt & Whitney’s Turbine Overhaul Services facility in Singapore, a joint venture with Singapore Technologies Aerospace, became the first UTC facility to achieve the highest ACE certifi- cation level, Gold, for the entire operation. Since ACE was introduced at the facility in 1996, on-time delivery has improved from 81 percent to 96 percent and average repair time has been reduced by 50 percent, from 33 days to 16. Other ACE successes abound throughout UTC. Operations as disparate as Otis Spain and Sikorsky’s Metrology Lab completed ACE projects. In the first case, an Otis team prevented cancellation of 200 unit sales in 2001 and 2002 by changing the way customer complaints are recorded, analyzed and then remedied; in the second case, a Sikorsky team reduced lead time by 87 percent and backlog by 68 percent for the lab, which calibrates 34,000 measurement and test instruments annually. Hamilton Sundstrand’s manufacturing plants in Santa Isabel, Puerto Rico, improved on-time delivery rates to about 95 percent en route to ACE Silver-level certification in 2002, and reduced scrap and rework by more than 20 percent from the prior year. The plants employ approximately 550 people who support Hamilton Sundstrand’s business with Boeing, Airbus, Bombardier, Lockheed Martin and other customers. New York Aquarium  The fish don't know the difference, but the New York Aquarium in Brooklyn does. The aquarium is now getting about 20 percent of  its daily electricity usage from a clean-energy UTC Fuel Cells’ unit. 2002 year in review 29 Equally noteworthy in 2002 were UTC’s initiatives to improve efficiency.