Woodward, Inc. (NASDAQ:WWD) Q1 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Chip Blankenship: Well, we are taking action to achieve that. Like I said, our three focuses in addition to recovering our operations are on rightsizing the business, so that’s a key action. Price realization, we’ve got some opportunities to do a little better there and we need to push that through and get the value that we’re looking for our products. And then the product portfolio rationalization that I was talking to. So none of these are easy things and none of these — and each of these things take some time, which is why it moves it to the back half. If things that we were in many cases planning to execute on this year, but we knew it would take time to start to see the benefits of them.

Louis Raffetto: Great. Thank you. And then just — can you tell me what you guys are seeing on the OEs side from Aerospace? What about you are 737, 787, A320, any pull from the OEs?

Chip Blankenship: We’re seeing the same sort of schedules, I mean, there are a lot of, I would say, small changes in reschedules going on out there, but there’s nothing that’s changing our overall build rate or rate break plans from last year. So we’re in tune with the engine and airframe folks and following their lead and trying to make sure we support them.

Louis Raffetto: All right. And then just lastly just on the variable comp, so I guess most of that’s flowing through the cost of goods. SG&A was pretty much flat year-over-year.

Mark Hartman: It goes across all three lines on the P&L, cost of goods sold, R&D and SG&A.

Louis Raffetto: Okay. Thank you.

Mark Hartman: You’re welcome.

Chip Blankenship: Thank you.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Michael Ciarmoli with Truist Securities. Your line is now open.

Michael Ciarmoli: Hey, guys. Good evening. Thanks for taking the questions. Maybe I don’t know if you want to super mark just to go back to — I think Rob’s first question on Aerospace, you guys are one of the companies that help us out and disclose these operating income bridges. So if I looked in the Aerospace segment this quarter, I mean, was price mix and productivity, did that improve sequentially from the fourth quarter?

Mark Hartman: Yes. So we don’t have sequential bridges as you know Michael in 10-Q overall. But where really the price mix and productivity inflation impact is, kind of, the other side of it. In essence, as we’ve achieve that 5% price realization, which we did here in the quarter, that’s offsetting the inflation both on the material and the direct labor side that we’re seeing.

Michael Ciarmoli: Okay, okay. And then I guess just back to the previous question, this confidence level in the industrial margins, I know you’re not going to give us second quarter guidance. But I mean, should we expect — are we going to see a step function improvement in the second quarter? Or just — it sounds like most of your new capacity comes online in second half? And I mean, it really sets up for what’s going to look like I don’t know 13.5%, 14% margins to kind of get to that flattish. Is that the right way to think about it? Or should we expect maybe some more pronounced improvement in the second quarter here off of this 5% level?

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