Defense manufacturer reflects on growth, opportunity in complex composite structures

GSE Dynamics (Hauppauge, N.Y., U.S.) was founded in April 1971 by Daniel J. Shybunko, who came from a background as a structural engineer at Grumman Aerospace and received their support to open his own manufacturing company on Long Island.

Originally named “GSE” for its initial focus on “ground support equipment” for defense aircraft, the company has grown to offer full-service engineering, manufacturing, assembly and testing of a variety of complex defense aerostructures built with composites and metals.

GSE Dynamics is one of the honorees for CW Top Shops 2023, an annual benchmarking survey program run by CompositesWorld and Gardner Intelligence. GSE Dynamics has been named a CW Top Shop each year the survey has run so far, including 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and most recently in 2023.

Beyond the data, what makes Top Shops facilities stand out? The CW team asked each of the latest honorees to share more about their companies’ histories, goals and trends in the composites industry.

The following Q&A features responses from Anne D. Shybunko-Moore, owner and CEO:

CW: What size is your facility today?

Shybunko-Moore: GSE has two facilities located on Long Island, New York, a 30,000-square-foot building for our corporate headquarters and manufacturing facility, and a 57,000-square-foot building with our composites capabilities and machining center. GSE currently employs 80 employees.

CW: What composite materials and processes do you work with?

Shybunko-Moore: Materials include:

• Woven and unidirectional carbon fiber
• Quartz, E-glass and S-glass
• Toughened epoxy, polyester, cyanate ester, BMI
• Film adhesives
• Metallic and non-metallic core
• Carbon foam

Processes include:

• Prepreg/autoclave curing
• Vacuum infusion
• Adhesive bonding
• Additive manufacturing
• Multi-axis machining
• Assembly
• Nondestructive testing (NDT)
• Material characterization and quality conformance testing

CW: What end markets do you serve?

Shybunko-Moore: GSE is recognized as a national leader in the aerospace and defense industry and has grown to be one of the largest federally certified Woman Owned Small Businesses in the Defense Logistics Agency for Aviation. GSE also holds prime contracts with the military services and subcontracts with larger defense primes and systems integrators supporting platforms in multi-domain environments (air, land and maritime).

CW: Reflecting back on 2023, what was your company’s biggest achievement or strength?

Shybunko-Moore: As a small business, GSE is unique in how the company maintains both prime contracts directly with the Department of Defense (DOD) while also supporting defense OEMs. GSE made great strides in 2023 addressing critical supply chain constraints to meet the demands of the warfighter. This teaming between suppliers and customers makes all the difference, allowing us to deliver on our commitments.

CW: What goals does your company have going into 2024, or what opportunities do you see ahead?

Shybunko-Moore: Looking ahead to 2024, GSE sees solid opportunities in the aerospace and defense market. The focus will continue to be on both growth and productivity initiatives. While supply chain constraints may persist, we are better able to perceive and overcome issues as they come up.

CW: When we communicated about CW Top Shops 2022, GSE Dynamics indicated that a new ERP system and Nadcap welding certification were goals going into the new year. Are you able to expand on progress toward these goals, or what advantages these do/will bring to the company?

Shybunko-Moore: As anticipated, GSE is continuing to fully implement our new ERP system aimed at streamlining processes and gaining efficiencies. We are also focused on ways to increase our capacity including with advanced manufacturing technologies. We have positioned ourselves well to be strong on legacy platforms as well as new platforms and diverse products. GSE is committed to engaging in new technology to ensure we stay engaged in next-generation manufacturing.

CW: Your company prides itself on diversity in manufacturing processes to serve the defense market’s needs. How does GSE Dynamics maintain flexibility and diversity in its operations, and why is this important?

Shybunko-Moore: The breadth and range of GSE Dynamics’ capability has proven to be a competitive advantage in terms of our ability to deliver complex structures within tight timelines. We excel in designing and building highly complicated aircraft components. We work with aluminum, stainless steel, titanium, CRES, Inconel, exotic alloys, other metals and composites. Our team can handle assemblies that range in size from small fittings to large engine cowls and complex actuators. We specialize in large, close-tolerance structures, as well as metallic and composite structures. GSE is vertically integrated in key areas to allow us to provide single-source service rapidly for many parts.

CW: How does sustainability factor into your operations?

Shybunko-Moore: GSE is currently focused on sustainability for reducing operational expenses. Within our manufacturing process, we are reducing our electrical consumption, improving power quality/factor/voltage, increasing our electrical system capacity reducing unnecessary heat, improving the cooling capacity of our air conditioning and freezers, and installing lighting with extended life, improved light quality and reduced energy consumption.

We have also enrolled in a New York State program, ReCharge NY, that provides electricity through hydropower (Niagara Falls) to manufacturing companies.

CW: How does your company employ automation and Industry 4.0/data within your operations?

Shybunko-Moore: GSE is looking to automation and Industry 4.0 solutions to increase capacity, drive precision and reduce costs. A challenge for GSE is that many of our jobs are unique, complex and often smaller in quantity. Having said that, we already see benefits from programmable automation which is associated with batch production. We are also exploring the potential for flexible automation which can perform changeovers of parts that share similar tools or have additional devices. We are also evaluating how additional sensors and devices could inform adjustments to workflow and reduce downtime.  This evaluation of different technologies and processes will help us establish our goals in this area. Ultimately, we are aiming for a full digital thread from cradle to grave.

CW: How does your company address workforce development?

Shybunko-Moore: Attracting new talent to the manufacturing sector is an industry-wide challenge. GSE maintains a skill matrix for all disciplines and continuously integrates cross training and skill expansion into the short-, medium- and long-term expectations for all employees and supervisors.

GSE has also taken a lead position on a regional and national level of looking at workforce training initiatives to ensure our industrial base can meet the needs of our customers. For example, GSE was designated as the Local Partner Engagement Coordinator (LPEC) for the U.S. Navy’s Talent Pipeline Program for the New York region. This program focuses not only on critical workforce training but also on retention.

The ability to train the next-generation workforce has become a national security topic for defense contractors, and GSE is in that conversation, and actively participating to attract talent to the manufacturing sector.