Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the 2019 fourth quarter Ducommun earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will follow at the time. If anyone should require assistance during the conference, please press star then zero on your touchtone telephone. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your host, Mr. Chris Witty, the moderator. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you. Welcome to Ducommun's 2019 fourth quarter conference call. With me today are Steve Oswald, Chairman, President, and CEO, and Chris Wampler, Vice President, Interim Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer, and Controller and Chief Accounting Officer. I'm going to discuss certain limitations to any forward-looking statements regarding future events, projections, or performance that we may make during the prepared remarks or the Q&A session that follows.
Certain statements today that are not historical facts, including any statements as to future market conditions, results of operations, and financial projections are forward-looking statements under the Federal Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and are therefore prospective. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors, which could cause actual results to differ materially from the future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.
Although we believe that the expectations reflected in our forward-looking statements are reasonable, we can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to be correct. In addition, estimates of future operating results are based on the company's current business, which is subject to change.
Particular risks facing Ducommun include, among others, the cyclicality of our end-use markets, the level of U.S. government defense spending, legal and regulatory risks, management changes, the cost of expansion and acquisitions, and competition.
These risks and others are described in our annual report and Form 10-K filed with the SEC, and our forward-looking statements are subject to those risks. Statements made during this call are only as of the time made, and we do not intend to update any statements made in this presentation except if and as required by regulatory authorities. This call also will include non-GAAP financial measures.
Please refer to our filings with the SEC for a reconciliation of the non-GAAP measures referenced on this call to the most similar GAAP measures. We filed our Form 10-K with the SEC today, and you will find a link to all our filings on the company's website under the Investor Relations tab. I would now like to turn the call over to Mr. Steve Oswald for a review of the operating results. Steve?
Well, thank you, Chris, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today for our fourth quarter conference call. As usual, I'll begin by providing an update on recent developments at the company. After which, Chris Wampler will review our financials in detail. As we finish a very important year for the company in 2019, I want to take this opportunity to first review a few highlights of our strong performance.
Our team has been working diligently over the past three years, improving all of our operations, developing our product portfolio, driving new technologies, focusing on providing high value to customers, and making strategic acquisitions, among others. In 2019, Ducommun sales grew to $721 million of 15% over 2018, and its highest since 2014. In conjunction with that increase, we grew gross profit to $152 million or 21.1%.
Net margin rate for 2019 has not been realized at the company in more than 15 years. Adjusted margins rose as well to 7.9% from 6.4% in 2018, and we generated $51 million in cash from operations. Just as important, with great top and bottom-line growth, EBITDA rose to $92.3 million in 2019 or 12.8% of sales versus $70.7 million or 11.2% of sales last year.
We're very proud of all these gains as we develop the company for sustained high performance in the years ahead. Now, turning specifically to the fourth quarter, revenue rose 14% year-over-year and marked the sixth consecutive quarter of double-digit increases, averaging 15% growth, which was mainly organic.
The majority of the gains were driven by important military programs, such as the F-35, F-15, the Apache helicopter, and several missile programs. It also included good growth with Airbus and Boeing.
The other real bright spot for the quarter was ending the year with a backlog of about $910 million, bolstered by strong orders across numerous key platforms, particularly within our defense business. We also posted an impressive book-to-bill ratio in the quarter of 1.4, again, driven by defense.
As mentioned in the press release, we have spent a good amount of time during the past few years improving the performance of our defense operations and business development team and now are seeing the results. It's also great to see our team leveraging Ducommun's capabilities and structures more and more within the defense markets, and orders in that part of Ducommun's business increased sequentially in the second half of the year by 45%.
At the same time, we completed another important acquisition, Nobles Worldwide, who supplies advanced technical products for a variety of aircraft, naval vessels, and military vehicles. The integration is going very well, and the team is already adding great value, opening new markets and opportunities for Ducommun, along with expanding our engineered products portfolio.
As also mentioned in the press release, we're off to a strong start in 2020 within many areas of the company. We are also working closely with Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems on the 737 MAX. After the announcements in December from both companies, Ducommun took action in January to ensure all costs within our affected operations were being closely and proactively managed.
All of our affected operations have been working to minimize the impact. Due to some of our successes with new business, we have been able to redeploy some employees.
The amount of personnel furloughed in January due to the 737 MAX was less than 3%. Though difficult, we are proud of our performance-centered teams proactively dealing with the situation. That being said, we are looking forward to starting production back later in Q1 with Spirit based on public comments and communication from them, and with Boeing as soon as April.
We're also well-positioned operationally to meet any rate requirements, along with the ramp-up in the future. In regards to the 2020 outlook, we see our strong backlog in defense, growing business with Airbus, and our strategic supplier agreement with Raytheon, which we announced in July 2019, as all examples of programs helping to offset this year's revenue headwind with 737 MAX production.
Company is also benefiting from new process technologies, exemplified by our $200 million, 10-year contract to supply Middle River Aerostructures with LEAP engine-to-cell components for the A320 platform. This business utilizing Ducommun's proprietary VersaCore Composite process technology, will deliver over $10 million in 2020 revenue, with a full ramp-up to $20 million in 2021.
It is now all being fully produced at our Guaymas, Mexico Performance Center. The Nobles acquisition closed in October 2019, will also help provide additional revenue this year. Finally, all the hard work the past three years, including process improvements, restructuring, leadership development, cost discipline, and other initiatives, will also contribute in 2020.
Therefore, Ducommun's 2020 revenue growth, based on both Spirit and Boeing following through on their public comments regarding their production plans, should be flat to slightly down low single digit in the first half of 2020, and up low single digits in the second half of 2020.
Coming off the last few years, this is certainly more modest, but under the circumstances, with the 737 MAX situation, we feel it's an excellent outcome, shows the company's development in the past few years, and we will deliver on our commitments. Now, let me provide some additional color on our markets, products, and programs. Beginning with our military and space sector, we posted fourth quarter revenue of $89.5 million, up 22% versus 2018.
In 2019, we drove sales of nearly $325 million, a gain of over 17% over 2018, reflecting growth across a broad variety of defense platforms, including nearly every aspect of our product portfolio. We saw a double-digit increase in demand for our military fixed-wing aircraft programs, particularly strong shipments from the F-15 and F-35, as well as substantial top-line expansion for helicopters like the Apache, Black Hawk, and Chinook.
In addition, the Patriot missile system rose to become one of our top sellers last year. We saw significant growth across many other military and space applications. We are well positioned for future growth across our defense platforms in 2020, again, in all sectors, and began the year with a backlog of roughly $450 million, up 32% year-over-year.
Within our commercial aerospace operations, fourth quarter sales declined slightly year-over-year to $83 million, while for 2019 as a whole, revenue grew 15% to just over $350 million. Ducommun's growth continues to be fueled by large narrow-body aircraft platforms, nearly all which saw double-digit growth last year.
While Boeing is still our largest customer, and the 737 MAX a major contributor revenue, Ducommun's expansion with Airbus since 2017 has clearly helped and put important balance in our portfolio.
The Airbus A320 and A220 families in particular have become very important factors in our growth trajectory, and Airbus in total represents a larger and larger share, both directly and indirectly, in Ducommun's commercial revenue last quarter. The backlog within our commercial aerospace sector stood at roughly $431 million at the end of 2019, positioning us well for solid performance going forward.
Despite some uncertainty with the 737 MAX production schedule, we remain optimistic about the commercial market given the breadth of key platforms we serve in this market in 2020. With that, I'll have Chris review our financial results in detail. Chris?
Thank you, Steve, and good afternoon, everyone. As a reminder, please see the company's filings and today's press release for further descriptions of matters under discussion during the call. 2019, as Steve discussed, was a year of great accomplishment for Ducommun that included strong top-line growth, solid margin expansion, Adjusted EBITDA growth, and a variety of wins that position us well for the future.
Our Ducommun operating system and its performance Center focus factory approach continues to be a catalyst in driving the improvement of the year-over-year operating results. We feel confident that our efforts to broaden our customer base and streamline the business will continue to serve us well as we head into 2020 and beyond. Now I'll move to the details of our overall results. Review of the fourth quarter 2019.
Revenue for the fourth quarter of 2019 was $186.9 million versus $164.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2018. The performance was driven primarily by $16.1 million of higher sales within the military and space sector, and to a lesser extent, $3.6 million of greater revenue from our commercial aerospace customers. Both end markets saw increased demand across a variety of platforms and programs.
Ducommun's overall backlog at the end of the fourth quarter was approximately $910 million, a new record for the company. As a reminder, we define backlog as potential revenue based on customer purchase orders and long-term agreements with firm fixed prices and expected delivery dates of 24 months or less.
Our focus factory approach at our Performance Centers continues to drive strong margins as our gross margin was 21.5% in the fourth quarter versus 19.9% in the prior year's comparable period.
The increase year-over-year was primarily due to the impact of favorable volume along with the manufacturing efficiencies. This was our highest gross profit percentage quarter since the second quarter of 2010 and o ur Q4 gross profit amount of $40.1 million was the highest gross profit dollar result in the company's history.
SG&A was $24.9 million in the fourth quarter versus $22.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2018, with the increase primarily reflecting incremental SG&A from the Nobles business and higher compensation and benefit costs.
The company reported operating income for the fourth quarter of $15.2 million or 8.1% of revenue, compared to $6.3 million or 3.8% of revenue in the prior period. The year-over-year improvement was due to higher revenue, higher gross profit, and the fact that the prior year included, in aggregate, $4.5 million of restructure charges and refinancing costs.
The 2019 fourth quarter, by comparison, included a total of $0.6 million of purchase accounting adjustments and refinancing costs. On an adjusted basis, operating income was $15.8 million or 8.4% of sales in the fourth quarter of 2019 versus $10.8 million or 6.6% of sales in 2018.
Interest expense was $5.2 million in the fourth quarter of 2019 versus $3.8 million in the prior year period due to higher debt levels related to the company's acquisition of Nobles in October 2019. As announced on December 20, 2019, we executed a debt refinancing, which included entering into a Term Loan A of $140 million to clear our $100 million revolver as well as pay down some of our Term Loan B, which carries a higher interest rate.
The company reported net income for the fourth quarter of $8.9 million or $0.75 per diluted share compared to net income of $0.7 million or $0.06 per diluted share for the fourth quarter of 2018. The year-over-year increase was primarily due to $7.4 million of higher gross profit and lower restructure and other charges as I previously mentioned.
Adjusted net income was $9.5 million or $0.80 per diluted share in the 2019 fourth quarter versus $5.2 million or $0.44 per share in the prior year period. Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter of 2019 was $25.2 million or 13.5% of revenue compared to $19.4 million or 11.8% of revenue for the comparable period in 2018, an increase of 170 basis points. Let me turn to the segment results. Electronic Systems.
Our Electronic Systems segment posted revenue of $96.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2019 versus $85.3 million in the prior year period. These results reflect a $9.3 million increase in sales to our military and space customers while commercial aerospace shipments were down slightly year-over-year.
Electronic Systems posted operating income for the fourth quarter of $9.9 million or 10.2% of revenue versus $7.5 million or 8.7% of revenue in the prior period. Excluding restructuring charges last year, Electronic Systems adjusted operating margin was 11.5% for the 2018 fourth quarter with the year-over-year decline reflecting product mix. Structural Systems. Our Structural Systems segment posted revenue of $90.6 million in the fourth quarter of 2019 versus $78.9 million last year.
The year-over-year increase was due to $4.9 million of higher sales across our commercial aerospace applications, primarily large airframe single-aisle platforms and a $6.8 million increase in revenue within the company's military and space markets. Structural systems posted operating income for the quarter of $11.6 million, or 12.8% of revenue, compared to $5.7 million, or 7.2% of revenue last year.
Excluding restructuring charges and inventory purchase accounting adjustments, structures adjusted operating margin was 13.4% for the 2019 fourth quarter and 8.7% for the 2018 fourth quarter. The year-over-year operating margin improvement reflects favorable product mix and improved manufacturing efficiencies.
Corporate general administrative expense. CG&A expense for the fourth quarter of 2019 was $6.3 million, or 3.4% of revenue, versus $6.9 million, or 4.2% of revenue in 2018. The year-over-year decrease was due to lower restructure charges of $0.3 million and lower general corporate expenses of $0.2 million.
Turning to liquidity and capital resources. We generated $31 million of cash from operations in the fourth quarter of 2019 and $51 million for the full year, compared with $13 million during the prior year quarter and $46 million for 2018 in total. We remain committed to managing working capital effectively and improving asset utilization to maintain solid margins and generate as much operating cash as possible.
In terms of capital expenditures, we spent $3.9 million during the fourth quarter and $18.8 million for the full year. We anticipate spending $16 million-$18 million in 2020 to support new programs and product development. We're again pleased with our full year and fourth quarter performance and remain upbeat about our future results. I'll now turn it back over to Steve for his closing remarks. Steve?
Okay. Thanks, Chris. Well, we've certainly, hopefully, provided, I think, some important information for shareholders today as we begin 2020. Again, a few final thoughts here. 2019 was certainly a terrific year where the company was just three years ago. Despite the short-term challenges of the Max, I believe we have a lot of runway ahead.
2020 will be one that sees increasing contact with Airbus, continued strength across all our defense platforms, and determined focus on serving Boeing and Spirit as we support this important program, along with the subsequent resumption of production. I'd also add that we do have the right footprint, cost structure, discipline, and operational leadership to continue developments at the company and strengthen it this year.
Finally, you can be assured that everyone at the company is fully engaged as we move through the first quarter and l ike our track record during the past few years, despite the short-term challenge, we will deliver on our commitments. With that, I'll turn it over for questions. Alexander?
At this time, I would like to inform everyone, in order to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Again, that is star one to ask a question. We have your first question from Ken Herbert from Canaccord. Your line's open.
Hi, good afternoon, Steve and Chris.
Ken, good afternoon.
Hey, a really nice end of the year, Steve. I appreciate the commentary you've given on the impact of the 737 MAX from a top-line standpoint. Can you provide any color on how we should think about gross margins in the first half of the year in particular? Are you able to maintain greater than 20% gross margins with the volume headwinds? Any more detail on that would be great.
Yeah, no problem. Okay. Yeah, it's a great question. Chris and I had talked about it, and we figured we'd get to it on the Q&A. Just, at least on the operating income margin, Ken, we did, for the whole year in 2019, 7.8%, roughly. Okay. We think that for the year, flattish to that is where we're going to be.
Flattish to run rate of op margins in 2019.
Okay. All right. I'm guessing, though, just with volume, you'd probably see some obviously stronger second half of the year relative to the first half of the year.
Yeah.
Yeah. Well said.
Yeah.
Yep, that's right, Ken.
Yep.
Okay. I just wanted to elaborate, I think you mentioned, Steve, that you were going to start to ship to Spirit in March, and I think you mentioned Boeing in April. I'm guessing your shipments would largely be in line with the numbers that certainly Spirit have put out on what they plan to deliver this year, or do you expect to deviate much from that?
No, absolutely in line, Ken. Everything is locked in from what we heard from Spirit. We're expecting on Tuesday of next week to get the production schedule from them officially. Everything is in line to their public comments.
Okay. That's excellent. Then just switching gear, obviously, you continue to see great success on the defense side. Can you just provide a little bit more detail on how you think defense grows in 2020? You've really benefited, obviously, from F-35 and F-15 and some of the rotorcraft. How do we think about the moving pieces in 2020 on the defense side?
Yeah, I guess a couple of things. First, obviously, in my comments, we've put a lot of work into it the last couple of years. I think we've really improved our defense operations, which were not very good when I got here. We also have built, I think, the right type of BD team.
I think going forward, I mentioned a little bit, though I won't get into a lot of detail, I think we have some great things, and you'll hear more this year about driving more structures business in defense. Stay tuned for that. I also feel that if you look at a Northrop, if you look at a Lockheed, our penetration in those counts is fairly low. I see a lot of runway ahead for Ducommun in those areas.
Okay, perfect. Appreciate the color. I'll pass it back there.
Ken, thanks very much.
Thanks, Ken.
Always a pleasure.
We have your next question from Mike Crawford from B. Riley FBR. Your line's open.
Thanks. Maybe if we just go into the potential parameters around margin impact. If we consider, as you know in your K, that the numbers that Steve's talking about is 216 shipsets in 2020, if that's mostly in the back nine months of the year, you're talking about mid-20s a month.
You gave your margin thoughts around that, but what about the next year, if perhaps the monthly run rate is closer to 2x that, and if we have as expected year otherwise in defense and the rest of your business, any thoughts on what the margins might look like in the following year?
Mike, I'll start with. When you look at this year, I agree with how you laid it out. There's a reason we have a diversified portfolio. There's, as Steve's pointing to, the defense side will step up a little bit this year.
As we take a step back with 737 MAX this year, the structures margins, they'll be challenged to be where we were as we ran through 2019, it's the growth on the defense side that'll sort of balance that out and keep us in the range of performance that we're talking about. As you move out another year, if the rate doubles up as we head into that year, incrementally we'll get that margin back on the structure side.
Again, plan is that we continue to, we've sort of turned a corner here over the next few years with defense, so we're looking to keep going there. That gives us the expansion possibilities as we move into 2021.
Right but you know r egarding the question of margin impact, is that too specific?
Mike, look, I guess I just say, look, we thought about how we were going to talk today. I think that this year, the story, obviously, there's a lot of things I ran over, but we feel good about talking at least about our op income margin. I would say if you look at 2021, if that goes back 2x, we're going to expand margins.
Right.
We're going to get the scale, and we're going to get the drop through. I would say that if it goes 2x, 2021 looks real good.
Right. May I'll take one last stab at it and then pass the baton. Let's say we get say 737 production back into around 50 a month or something like that, and your other business is still growing. You're being very successful, like more of a longer-term operating model target for Ducommun on, say, gross and/or EBITDA type margins given your current footprint and your expanded VersaCore production and Guaymas, et cetera.
Maybe I'll correlate it. Since it's your third try at it, Mike, I'll try it another way, too. Let's hone in a little bit more on just our baseline, which is where we're at this year. It doesn't matter whether you're talking gross margin or operating margin.
Again, we're going to battle to sort of keep where we're at now. If that scenario plays out, where Steve and I are both pointing to is that's upside. That's expansion as we head into 2021. I think we've been on a journey. We've gone from mid-17s to mid-19s and now 2021 at the gross profit level, it's how do we take another step in that direction. It's going to take that volume along with the improvements we're talking about to get us there.
Mike, this is Steve. You're asking me if there's headroom in the 2021, there is.
Okay. Well, thank you.
Okay, thanks.
We have your next question from Michael Ciarmoli from SunTrust. Your line's open.
Hey, good afternoon, guys.
Hi, Mike.
Nice close to the year here. How are you?
Good. Thanks, Mike.
Maybe just to stay on the margins a little bit, Steve. You mentioned the employee furlough, but it is pretty impressive that you guys are going to be able to maintain flat margins given the volume declines. What else are you doing with some of the fixed assets?
How are you able to repurpose or reuse any of that excess capacity? Then I guess if we think about, let's be optimistic, and if those rates do double in 2021, what do you have to do then to kind of free up some of that capacity, or how are you thinking about bringing employees back on?
Yeah. I'll kick it off and Steve can certainly jump in here anywhere. On the question related to what we're currently doing or as these assets are being taken a step back on the level of utilization, the benefit we have is we don't have one facility that is our MAX 737 facility that's carrying the brunt of all of this, the headwind that's coming at us.
The headwind is splintered out amongst three to four facilities that all have pieces of that. With that and then with having the other commercial and then the defense customers that we have that can pick up the slack, that's what gives us the increased flexibility versus if we were sitting there with one facility that was going to take on all this headwind.
That's why we flexed what we did, that's why we feel like we can manage, and certainly, as Steve alluded to, first half of the year, a little more challenging. As the growth is kicking in, all the other things along with the 737 MAX rate picking up the second half of the year certainly helps out. As we go forward, then that again makes it easier to sort of ramp up because you're not talking about for a company our size of hundreds of people at one location. You're talking about sort of just ramping it up a little bit.
Yeah. Just a couple other things.
Got it.
Just the other thing, Mike, we have the capital already in place, okay? As I mentioned in my remarks, okay, we're ready for the ramp-up, okay? Fortunately, because of some new programs and structures with defense, we're able to redeploy people. That also helped us.
The last thing I'd say is just when you look at our business, either in the past or going forward in the last couple of years, we have fairly good cost discipline and we're fairly lean. It's not like all of a sudden, we've got to do lots of different things. We've done some things in January. We got ahead of it. I think, again, we're going to be in good shape in 2020.
Got it. If I look at 2020, just on the top line, you gave sort of the outlook there, but in aggregate, should we expect the organic growth to be down and you obviously got more contribution from Nobles? Clearly, the rest of the portfolio sounds like it's growing absent the max headwind. It seems like you're going to have a pretty substantial max headwind. Organically, obviously down. Nobles contribution gives you a fill some of that hole?
Yeah, I think a couple of things. As I mentioned in the remarks, first half, a little bit tougher, flattish to a couple of points down. Second half up, single. We still expect good growth with Airbus, obviously. We've got a lot going on in defense. We've got Nobles, as I talked about. I kind of feel that that situation is we've already got the orders, right, for the most part.
Yeah.
We're just about executing. Obviously, we're expecting Spirit to start sometime in March and Boeing as soon as April per Dave Calhoun. That's where we are.
Got it. Just the last one in the backlog. You called out the strength in military. Big jump in that military backlog sequentially. Was Nobles a factor in driving that? Can you just maybe point to some of the specific programs that whether they're new wins, follow-on orders that's driving some of that military growth?
I'll hit Nobles. Yeah, Nobles is a part of that. They do bring with them their backlog that we acquired at the valuation date. This first quarter, you've seen Nobles pop in there.
A majority of the increase in the backlog for defense was either current programs like F-35 and some other things, and new programs. It's a nice mix of both, Mike.
Got it. All right, I'll jump back in the queue. Thanks, guys.
Thank you.
We have your next question from Edward Marshall from Sidoti & Company. Your line's open.
Hey, guys. Good evening. How are you?
Hi, Ed.
Good.
I'm curious, what's the anticipation on interest expense for 2020?
Yeah, on 2020, we're anticipating it. If you look at Q4, that's probably a fair view of what we have coming at us. We definitely picked up a couple of points with our term loan switch out for what we did pay down. We're going to run sort of at that rate.
About $2 million- $3 million of incremental interest expense or 2020 versus 2019. Then it looks like, if we look at the tax rate, just thinking through the tax rate assumptions, I think traditionally we're talking, is it 18%-19%, 18%-20%? What would you normally?
Yeah, no, if you look at the tax rate, we're going to run more in the 19%-20% rate is where we're going to be.
Okay.
Yep.
Okay. Given the comments around revenue and then flattish kind of op income for 2020, should I expect that EPS declines in 2020? Is that appropriate given the current environment?
No. No, I wouldn't say that. Just hold one second, because I was going to go back on the interest for a second. We're probably looking more at a run rate of about 4.5 per quarter on the run rate as we look into 2020.
flattish even though
Yeah
even though debt's up. Okay.
Yeah. Debt's up, rate's down a little bit. That's going to offset.
You think in that environment, you still grow EPS?
Yes. This is Steve. I think, over the year, we'll be up.
Okay. I'm just going to have to work through the math there.
Yeah.
And then-
More second half, but we'll be up for the year. We'll be up for the year, Ed. Yep.
More second half. Right. Okay. As I look at, I think you probably touched on this scenario a few times.
I think we lost Ed.
Ed, yeah, we lost you, buddy.
in Boeing, how [inaudible] think about the observed costs through that and being able to sustain the operating margin and kind of running in a, have you made up the differential between that 2/3 of revenue that's going to be lost in 2020 or pushed out in 2020, that you would have previously received? All of that has been under new programs, and the acquired revenue will offset that?
Okay, the question was. Yeah, your question kind of cut out there with us. Let's try it. Let's make sure.[crosstalk]
Chris, go ahead.
Yeah.
Just receive back on-
Yeah. What I think I was hearing you say is, as we're losing, we have the headwind with 737 MAX and margin related impact on. Cost structure underabsorbing. Do we already have it all filled back up so as we point to no margin impact that's where we're at. Is that what you're asking?
Right.
Yeah.
Being able to replace that revenue.
Well, yeah, I think to Steve's point, when you look at the full scale of next year, the answer is yes. I think when you look at it day to day, month to month, week to week at all of our Performance Centers, it's a different story at each one. If you go to a structures facility that's losing some of the revenue, we don't necessarily have that filled day one.
That's why we do think there's more pressure there on the margin in the first half of the year, until we get some other growth in there to help it. Again, some of it is we shift, and we flex a little more on the defense side, and we overdrive a little more there to make up for that as well.
Got it. Okay. Thanks very much.
All right. Thanks.
Again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Again, that is star one to ask a question. We have your next question from Becky Vincent from Vincent Enterprises. Your line's open.
Thank you. Congratulations on the great results.
Thank you.
Thanks, Becky.
I hope to have the opportunity to meet you one day. My question is really about the F-35 program. You highlighted that several times throughout the presentation, and I was curious if your primary customer on that was Lockheed Martin or some of their primes.
I'm not sure we want to disclose that.
Yeah.
We're probably not going to disclose that.
Okay. I didn't realize it was a difficult question.
It's not a difficult question.
That's fine.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you.
We have your next question from Ken Herbert from Canaccord. Your line's open.
Hi, Steve.
Yeah
I just wanted to again, follow up on the MAX, and I'm just curious if you could provide any more specifics on, I can appreciate you've got people in Monrovia, and you've got people, of course, in Parsons and other key facilities.
Can you provide any more sort of specifics on how that sort of the workflow or the volume for the 737 MAX, maybe breaks out by facility? And I'm curious if, one, Guaymas currently or in the future can do more on the 737 MAX, and then second, if the steps you've taken around headcount and the fixed cost structure, if any of that sort of spills into the second quarter or if all of that is largely flowed through in the first quarter?
Yeah. Hey, Ken, it's Chris. Okay, I'll start with, when you look at the first quarter to second quarter, assuming that what unfolds in terms of the start work time and the production levels ramping back over a reasonable period of time holds to where we're thinking it does now, then what we've done in Q1 should essentially get us where we need to. That's sort of the game plan on that aspect.
On that, just real quickly, Steve mentioned, we're locked in with Spirit. We're going to get their work about where we're headed. On Boeing, we're still sorting out exactly what it means for each one of them. Back to your question on sort of which facilities, you do. You've got the main facilities, Monrovia, Coxsackie, New York and Parsons, Kansas. You also have our Gardena facility doing some as well.
It is spread out. That's why the impact is sort of what it is and why we think we can mitigate some of the impact that somebody looking at it might think we're going to have. That's where we're at. It is split fairly evenly, whether it's the fire seals up in New York or inlets or spoilers, et cetera. It's a fairly even split.
Ken, this is Steve.
Okay.
Yeah, Guaymas, they got their heads down on VersaCore right now.
Yeah.
They still support Monrovia a little bit on the 737 spoilers. We've been able to, just because of, again, a lot of success over the last six to 12 months in defense, more and more with Airbus. Okay. The way we run the operations and kind of staying ahead of it, we were able to I think do a lot of good things the last six months, which helped us, obviously, as we started the year.
Yeah. Is there any opportunity to move any of the spoiler work or more of it down to Guaymas out of Monrovia?
Well, it's a specialized process. We have some legacy tanks in Monrovia, which aren't going to be able to go anywhere. I think for the most part, they do some work on the spoilers, but there's a little bit of a niche operation in Monrovia that's kind of here to stay.
Okay. Fair enough. Just one final question, not to get too far ahead of it here, but as you think about obviously sort of a roughly doubling of 737 MAX volume from 2020 to 2021 with obviously growth in other programs, are you at all concerned, Steve, about just ability to sort of rehire and restaff to support the higher rates? Or how have you taken steps to mitigate that potential risk down the road?
Yeah. Well, sure. Well, first thing is, we were fortunate, like with less than 3% on the furlough. That was a wonderful thing for Ducommun, right? Because the 737 MAX is an important program within the company. I have no concerns, and because we're so lean, we're able to keep most of our staff.
Excellent. Thank you very much.
All right, Ken. Thanks.
We have your next question from Michael Ciarmoli from SunTrust. Your line's open.
Hey, guys. Thanks for taking the follow-up.
Sure, Mike.
Maybe Chris, I just want to make sure, from a modeling perspective here, looking at the Electronic Systems margins, they were weaker in the current quarter. I think you guys called out mix, but as we look into next year and the ability to hold that corporate margin flat, it would seem like some of the burden falls on that Electronic System to drive some expansion there. Maybe just more of the mix issue in this quarter, and what gives you the confidence that you get that expansion in electronic next year?
Yeah, you're exactly right. That's where we're headed. When we talk about the diversified company and the one business helping the other, the electronics business, we've built it. As Steve alluded to, gotten to a better book of business as we've exited the year, going to have a better rate of volume that's going to happen throughout the year in most of those Performance Centers.
It will be that the volume is a big part of being able to drive that extra margin. The margin that was there this year that we came through, we mentioned 10%-11% historically, sort of where we've been, and we've got to pop a little more volume to start to get that accretion, and I think that's what we're looking for as we head here to lift it up.
Yeah, Mike, scale's going to be our friend this year in Electronic Systems.
Yep.
Got it. That's what I figured. Just maybe the last one, you talked about some of the growth in those military programs. Is there any concern at all, looking at this budget? Certainly, some of these legacy aircraft programs, fixed wing, look to be pretty big bill payers. There's a big cut there in Black Hawk. Chinook, the volumes aren't huge, so it's a couple units here and there. Any concerns as you see maybe some of the funds flow out of legacy into some of these newer modernization programs?
I think directionally, we're going to be fine. Obviously, we're on Apache as well, and that's going straight up type of thing. But I feel that even if we do see, and it's a fair point, we do see a little bit of a headwind on some of those other programs. We're winning new business, right? Because we now have a business development team that is focused on going into these big defense primes and making it happen. Mike, you got that? Operator, Alexander?
Okay. There appears to be no further questions in queue, so I'll turn it back-
Okay, that's fine. Perfect. I didn't hear him. Okay, great. Let me just wrap it up. Again, I want to thank everybody for calling in today. Obviously, a lot of information to get through. I thought we had an excellent discussion.
Hopefully, we were able to provide enough information. Folks understand a little bit more about what's going to happen in 2020, and I feel great about where we are. I feel great about 2021, 2022, and let's keep going, and we look forward to speaking to you at the end of the first quarter. Again, my thanks.
Thanks, everyone.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation, and have a wonderful day. You may all disconnect.