Photo provided by RBC Bearings

RBC Bearings was recognized with the Risk Management Award at the 2022 Supplier of the Year event. The award is given to a supplier who has gone above and beyond to support Boeing in navigating emergent events or unforeseen circumstances.

Q: What should people know about your company?

A: RBC is engineering- and innovation-centric in providing industry solutions, whether through organic growth or through the acquisition of new companies and their technologies to integrate within our own. RBC boasts 430 patents, including about 150 that are pending.

Q: What Boeing products are associated with your company?

A: Plain and anti-friction bearings, control and structural rods, high-strength fasteners, rings and seals, hydraulic actuators and valves, and precision machined assemblies.

Q: What is your company vision/mission?

A: The mission of RBC Bearings is to offer the industry’s broadest line of our highly engineered precision bearings and associated products with unique design solutions to our aerospace customers. Our mission is to achieve this with award-setting service levels that exceed industry standards and customer expectations.

Q: What does it mean to be recognized as a Supplier of the Year?

A: This is a very prestigious honor for RBC and has the entire company proud and ecstatic. To us, it validates our commitment to approach the market with carefully planned and monitored strategies and tactics in place to maintain exceptional service levels to our customers.

Q: What characteristics about your team do you most credit for your company’s achievement?

A: Continuity of management. The top 28 people that manage the company have more than 850 years of experience in the aerospace industry and over 500 years with RBC. This group of long-service leaders who understand the industry has allowed RBC to develop and maintain long-term methods to resolve operating issues with permanent solutions -- all to an end to provide superior service to the customer.

Q: How do you inspire your employees?

A: We empower them to contribute. A valued characteristic of the people at RBC is their entrepreneurial spirit. Providing talented individuals freedom and empowerment encourages them to be entrepreneurial, which leads to them finding roles where they can take on their own initiatives and contribute.

Q: What’s an interesting fact about your company?

A: RBC Transport Dynamics invented the lined spherical bearing, with the first application developed in 1957 for the Chevy Corvette suspension joint. Boeing adopted this technology and used it for the 727 program. Transport patented and licensed this technology in the 1960s. Today, we estimate the usage of this product in aerospace applications to exceed several hundred million dollars annually.