Global Industrial Tech and Mobility Conference. We're very excited to have Chris Calio, RTX's Chairman and CEO, for a chat with us about a lot of different themes in aerospace and defense. Chris, if you have any initial comments, I want to pass it off to you, and then we'll hit it.
Well, thanks, Jon, and great to be here this morning with everybody. Maybe just one housekeeping item, of course. Maybe making some forward-looking statements today, subject to all those risks and uncertainties, so please consult our SEC filings. We know with that out of the way, maybe just a brief comment on RTX and, and who we are. I think many of you know us, but for those of you who don't, leading aerospace and defense company, about $88 billion in sales last year. Three leading business segments: Collins Aerospace, Pratt & Whitney, and Raytheon. Coming off a pretty strong 2025, top-line growth, margin expansion, robust free cash flow generation, ended the year with a $268 billion backlog. So demand very strong and durable on both sides of our business, commercial aero and defense.
And so for us, really, the focus is on executing on that backlog and then, of course, innovating for future growth. We're a long-cycle business. We've got to make sure we've got the capacity in place, the advanced manufacturing in place, and we're continuing to fulfill and fill our technology pipeline. And so we issued our guidance out in January, and so no change there.
That, that's fantastic. Where I'd love to start is just we've described RTX as the marquee megatrend stock in our, in our-
I like that.
Because of its exposure to all sorts of big-picture tailwinds and themes across both aerospace and defense. I'd love to get your reaction to that, if you don't mind, and, and then we can kind of step through the segments. But, you know, big picture, what tailwinds, what growth opportunities are you most excited about in the years to come?
Well, Jon, I think you're right. So maybe just step back for a minute, and to your point, let me lay out sort of the macro environment that we're operating in.
Mm-hmm.
On commercial aerospace, obviously, the industry has come back very, very strong from the pandemic. RPK growth continues to be strong, 5% last year, another 5% this year. Beyond that, there's demand for 40,000 aircraft over the next 20 years. That's actually more than the installed base today, so a ton of deliveries still to come. Again, I'll tell you on the defense side, you know what's going on in the global environment. There's the replenishment opportunities here in the US. There's the NATO getting their budgets up to that 3.5% core. If you look at APAC, MENA, 3%-4% growth, so just really exceptionally strong macro tailwinds on both the commercial aero and the defense sides.
Then, if you just sort of drill down into our portfolio-
Mm-hmm
... I think we're very well constructed and positioned to take advantage of those, you know, macro tailwinds. If you look at Collins, for instance, you've got $105 billion of out-of-warranty content flying around out there, generating significant, you know, aftermarket returns and, and tails. They are, you know, number one or number two in 70% of their product segments. They've got 2x the content on the current generation of platforms than the older generation of platforms. So again, building up that installed base even more to generate even more aftermarket tailwinds into the future. Pratt & Whitney's got Pratt & Whitney Canada. Again, I, I don't think we spend enough time talking about Pratt Canada, the, the premier small engine business, 70,000 engines in service, number one or number two in each of its end markets.
Got a very strong military engine portfolio, the only, you know, 5th-gen, you know, powered fighters are coming from Pratt on priority programs like the Tanker and B-21. And then, of course, there's your GTF program, which I'm quite confident we're going to talk about a little bit later. But that program is 3x the size than when we first launched it, and it's got a very strong 8,000 engine backlog. So again, very, very strong there. And then you just look at Raytheon. You've got 35 systems in operations today across 50 countries, serves as the backbone of many countries' integrated air and missile defense, you know, architecture. So just incredibly strong, you know, product positionings, well-positioned to take advantage of those tailwinds.
You're seeing that play out, again, in the backlog that I mentioned up front, $268 billion. That's up 23% since the end of 2024. Then, for us, as I said, focus is on executing on that backlog. We're going to invest another $10 billion in company and customer-funded E&D and CapEx this year to make sure that we're finishing on our programs, executing on those programs, making sure we have the capacity, you know, in place for the ramp-up on both defense and commercial. So we're very excited about where we sit.
That was fantastic. There are so many things in there I want to follow up on, but if we just start somewhere, I feel like munitions is a good place to start. We all saw the munitions announcement from a couple weeks ago. Can you just walk us through how that's going to impact 2026, and what are the next steps for moving from framework to production on that?
Yeah, we're really, really excited about that and, and frankly, really proud to have, you know, partnered with the Department of Defense on these five framework agreements. I think it's good for the department, and it's part of its transformation agenda. I think it's good for national security. I think it's good business, you know, for Raytheon.
Mm.
The five frameworks we're talking about, it's all about ramping production over the next decade, and in many cases, you know, 2-4x the current rates that we're producing today. As you mentioned, these are framework agreements, so there's much work to do collaboratively with the department to get those into definitive agreements. So I don't want to get sort of too ahead of that process, Jon, but a couple of things I will say. One is the framework agreements are predicated on, you know, firm long-term demand.
Mm-hmm.
Right? I think most of us in this industry have been talking about the need for firm demand and firm demand signals, and I think the department has taken that, you know, very seriously. And so they want to give us that long-term demand, which allows us to invest in the capacity and just as, if not more importantly, our supply chain to invest in that capacity that's needed. It's a collaborative funding approach, which is good, which is also calibrated into our 2026 guidance. We'll start putting in some of that capacity in place, you know, towards the tail end of this year, I suspect, and then the sales will flow once that capacity is in place, and we're producing. But again, very excited about the opportunity.
And again, it's building on what is already, you know, incredible demand at Raytheon. You've got $75 billion in their backlog today. None of these framework agreements are included in that backlog. Those are outside as we work towards definitive agreements. But again, very proud to be a part of the transformation agenda that the department is driving. And so for us, it's like: How do we go take those production levels up? What do we need to do from a capacity perspective within our own four walls? What suppliers do we need to get up to the higher levels? What investments do they need to make? Are there other suppliers that we need to qualify to make sure that we have, you know, again, enough capacity in the system and the ecosystem to get to these levels?
A lot to do, but very exciting.
Yeah. Sounds like a fantastic opportunity. Can you talk a little bit more about the broader demand signals that we're seeing, missiles, munitions, demand? How does it evolve over the coming years?
Yeah, well, as I said up front, if you just look at—you know, go around the globe, you've got significant replenishment opportunity in the US, and I think you've seen, you know, the budget stand behind that and provide really good opportunity, you know, there. Global defense, everyone knows what's going on in the world. Those defense budgets, again, NATO, 3.5%. The other regions of the world are at 3%-4%. And at the end of the day, what people want the most is integrated air and missile defense, and that is something that is core to who we are and what we do. If you just think about all the products that we have in there, obviously, our Patriot system, the GEM-T Patriot Effector, you know, AMRAAM, and the like.
I mean, I can go through a whole bunch of our, of our... I'll call them franchise, you know, programs.
Yeah.
You know, people are always talking about the need for munitions replenishment. You talked about it up front.
Mm-hmm.
Obviously, our backlog is very strong there. But what I will tell you is we're starting to see people, you know, come to the realization that we need a similar potential effort on the sensor front.
Mm.
So think Patriot, think NASAMS. We've got, we've got a next-generation radar coming in, LTAMDS. We've got TPY-2, we've got SPY-6. So clearly strong, you know, munitions demand around the world, but also the need for additional sensors and radars, and we're able to provide those as well.
Mm-hmm.
I will tell you the other piece, the other threat, of course, that's evolved over the last few years are the you know, the UAS and drone, and we've got a very strong counter-UAS system that we've developed, the Coyote system, that's been highly effective, and see that as a another big growth engine.
Yeah. That's great. You know, if we could just talk a little bit more about international-
Mm
... specifically and the demand signals there. One of the stats that I love is this idea that 47% of the backlog is international, and what that means for revenue growth and margin improvement from here. Do you mind elaborating on that?
Yeah, sure. You know, again, when you look around the globe, and you look at all the hotspots, our equipment, our systems, our products have been incredibly effective in some of the most high-profile situations that we're seeing in the world today, whether that be Ukraine, Qatar, the Red Sea. So that's obviously created a lot of demand for the product.
Mm.
There's also, of course, a very strong installed international, you know, strong installed base in the international, you know, community. Take Europe, for instance. You've got nine Patriot countries, seven NASAMS countries, 20 countries that use the Raytheon effectors. Just look at the Middle East. Again, you've got 50, you know, Patriot fire units there, right? If you just look at some of our large orders in the last year, you know, Patriot GEM-T, an international order, about $2.5 billion. Our three largest contracts in Raytheon's backlog today are international customers. So to your point, that 47%, which is up, you know, significantly over the last few years, provides the volume that we need for productivity in our shops, provides a better, generally speaking, margin, you know, profile. Just think of our 2025 sales.
Over 30% of that was international. That's up four points in just two years. So some really good tailwind in terms of the mix of the backlog.
Mm-hmm. Oh, that's fantastic and, you know, fully appreciate the Patriot comments. Can we talk about Golden Dome a bit, if you don't mind?
Mm.
I feel like we can't leave a discussion about defense without talking about Golden Dome. More and more, we're seeing awards come through. The program is taking shape. What does that mean for Raytheon?
Yeah, well, if you, if you listen to how the administration has sort of talked about this-
Mm-hmm
... they want to be able to field capability in the next two-three years.
Okay.
If you want to field capability in that timeframe, you're gonna need proven, battle-tested systems. I just made my case for some of the Raytheon, you know, systems in my last answer.
Yep.
But so the idea would be taking those proven systems, take those proven systems, start to install those, and then work over the years on a sort of a technology, you know, upgrade sort of plan. I think that's the construct that may be at play here, and I think we're well positioned, frankly. I think it's gonna be a multilayer architecture, Golden Dome, space layer and then various, you know, ground-based, you know, missile and air defense layers. And Raytheon has premier products at every one of those layers. Can't say too much about the space layer because of the classification, but have some really interesting solutions there. And then, of course, as you just move down into the other products that I mentioned, you know, Coyote Counter-UAS, NASAMS, Patriot, and then the radar systems that I mentioned before.
So really, really well-positioned, I think, for Golden Dome as that continues to mature. And again, I'll, I'll reiterate, there's none of that is in our backlog today, so that, that $268 billion RTX backlog, Golden Dome is not in there yet.
Yeah. Sounds like Raytheon has a lot of tailwinds. Moving to Pratt. Whenever you speak publicly, I feel like investors are focused on some sort of update on the GTF. So let me just give you an opportunity to give us, you know, a bit of an update, if there is any, with respect to the powder metal issue, whatever you want to talk about.
Well, I like digging into the commercial aerospace. It's half of our business, almost half of our business, and so, I know what's going on in the world in defense, and rightfully so, it gets a lot of attention, but almost half of our business is commercial aerospace. As I said up front, you know, pretty well-positioned, given the macro tailwinds. Let me, before I get into powdered metal, maybe just some, you know, macro comments on-
Sure
... on the GTF. You know, today we've got about 45 million hours now on the GTF, so all of that learning going into our engineering, our production, and our sustainment. As I said before, it's 3x larger than we thought the program was gonna be. So this now has tails 20, 30, 40, you know, years out, and an 8,000 engine backlog, a high-quality backlog that still has to deliver. So much, you know, runway on that program. I would also say the GTF Advantage is slated to get certified this year, and we're starting to produce that engine, so additional thrust and efficiency. So really excited about some of the macros on the program and where it can go long term. Obviously, we're continuing to work through, as you noted, our powdered metal situation.
Mm-hmm.
Just from a financial and technical perspective, no change to the outlook, and we mentioned that back in January. For us, the critical enabler, and I've been pretty consistent about this, is MRO output. We need to continue to drive MRO output in order to get those assets back out to the fleet, to take aircraft off the ground and get them back into the hands of our customer. We had a pretty strong 2025 in terms of MRO output, 26% growth YoY. Exited the year, actually in the fourth quarter, 39%, you know, YoY. So exited on a really high run rate, really pleased with that. And we saw the AOGs come down in the fourth quarter, and we expect they will continue to come down, you know, gradually throughout this year.
But again, it's gonna come down to the continued MRO output in our shops. We've got, you know, 21 shops today. We're continuing to invest in repair development and automation and automated inspection. Anything we can do to drive efficiency and reduce turnaround time. You know, one of the things that we're gonna be continuing to do here in 2026, and we did in 2025, is allocating between OE and aftermarket.
Mm-hmm.
Because, again, we, we've got to continue to bend the curve downward on the AOGs like we've been doing, and again, we've got to make sure that material is flowing into our shops to make that happen. And we're still gonna be up year over year on an OE basis, but again, that allocation is gonna continue to happen here in 2026. I think it's imperative that we do that in order to continue to ensure the health of the overall fleet. The other thing I'll mention, and I talked about the GTF Advantage certification, there's a hot section plus package that we're actually gonna be certifying at the same time. That's 90%-95% of those durability improvements that we have on the GTF Advantage.
We're gonna kit those and start putting them into shop visits on our base fleet today. So they should be getting the benefit of, you know, of the GTF Advantage, durability improvements, you know, on that base fleet, so another tailwind in the program to help with fleet health.
That was, that was fantastic. Appreciate all the detail there. I'd love to chat a little bit bigger picture about engine aftermarket for Pratt, as well as other-
Mm
... manufacturers. We've seen pretty dramatic extensions of aircraft life, particularly with older technologies. Every year, I feel like it seems like retirement rates should be shooting back, but they're not. You know, they stay very low. Can you just talk about that backdrop as you see it, what it might mean for retirement rate trajectories across aircraft in general, but the V2500 in particular?
Yeah. Pratt's commercial aftermarket has continued to be pretty strong-
Mm.
You know, 23% growth last year, and that was on the back of, like, 14 and 20% over the, you know, the previous two years. And the V2500, to your point, continues to be a big, a big part of that growth story. Yes, we have seen very low retirements. Part of that is because of the growth in RPKs, part of it is because we're still recovering, you know, on the GTF, so there's strong demand. The engine also performs exceptionally well. So we've seen retirements in that 2% range. And keep in mind, that fleet is still relatively young. Average age, about 16 years old. 15% of that fleet still hasn't had its first shop visit, 35% still hasn't had its second shop visit.
So those are big, profitable shop visits as you, as you move out into the future. We did about 800 shop visits last year, thinking on about the same range, you know, this year, with some heavier content as it starts to age. So again, feel really good about the V2500 position in our commercial aftermarket, and it's gonna continue to be, I think, a growth driver. Even as those shop visits start to come down gradually, you'll start to see sort of heavier content as well to make up for that.
... I appreciate that answer. Maybe we can move, or before we move away from, from Pratt, maybe we should talk a little bit about the defense side of things-
Yeah.
namely, F-35. You've had a good story there. Would you mind digging in a bit?
No, of course not. Look, as I said up front, the military engine portfolio at Pratt, very strong, right? F135, F119, so the only fifth-gen, you know, engine fighters, tanker B21, so really good growth. We saw, I think, 12% sales growth last year, mid-single digit this year in that portfolio. F135 is gonna continue to grow, both in terms of, you know, production and sustainment. It's been really a remarkable platform, powers over 1,000 jets, got about 1 million hours in service, unrivaled sort of performance and reliability, on that program. And sustainment, I think, will start to grow. Jon, we've pushed out some of those scheduled shop visits because the engines continue to perform, you know, exceptionally well, even in difficult environments.
But those scheduled shop visits are now gonna start to come in, so that's gonna be a bigger part of that, of that portfolio. And as you look forward on the program, obviously, we're committed to keeping it on the F-35 as its only power plant, and so we're now developing the engine core upgrade-
Mm.
Right? Which is an upgrade, you know, to the core of that engine, providing more thrust, range, and efficiency for all three variants to drop-in change. It's also gonna have additional power and thermal management capability to be able to take on some of the requirements of some of the next-generation weapons that are gonna be hanging off of the F-35. So, you know, for us, the F135 is a priority critical platform, which is why we're continuing to invest.
Yeah. No, no, no lack of tailwinds across the, across the portfolio. Maybe we could shift a little bit over to Collins. Collins, historically, I would say, distinguished itself through having a lot of operating leverage, both on OE and aftermarket. You've talked a bit about the production capacity there. Can you elaborate on how you see margin expansion playing out, absorption tailwinds? How are these things progressing as we see Boeing and Airbus raise production rates?
Yeah, good question. So we laid out our guidance for 2026. Sort of the implied margin expansion at Collins was about 80 basis points at the midpoint of that guidance, and I'd put that expansion maybe into sort of three buckets. One is continuing, you know, volume and strength in commercial aftermarket that I talked about previously.
Mm-hmm.
Second would be, just as you were remarking, as OE rates continue to move upward, both 737 MAX, A320neo, and some of the wide-body, there are absorption benefits in our shops, right? They are capacitized to higher rates, so as we move more product, you know, through those factories, we'll get the absorption benefits and see those drop through. I'd say the third bucket, and this is something that I think the Collins team is exceptionally focused on right now, is the continued streamlining of that organization and structural sort of cost reduction. As you know, Collins, as a general matter, has been the product of a number of large acquisitions that have happened.
Yeah.
I think we've done a good job at integration, but there was more sort of meat on the bone, and so I think the Collins team has really taken up the challenge of continuing to streamline that business and make it as cost competitive as possible. Last year, we had, you know, 9% organic sales growth on a 3% reduction in headcount on an organic basis.
Mm.
So, continuing to drive productivity in every phase of that business.
Yeah. No, that's fantastic. And you mentioned that it was pieced together over many years with multiple deals. One of those was B/E Aerospace-
Mm
... Interiors. I feel like interiors is always a bit of a strange sticking point. Every cycle I hear about interior supply chain issues and other things. Can you just talk about how demand is trending for higher-end interiors, and can you talk a bit about supply chain and production there?
Yeah, I just think fundamentally, the interiors business is a really good business and well-positioned business there.
Mm.
There are very few companies that can do first-class seating, business-class seating, main cabin seating-
Mm-hmm
... and Collins is one of those on the back of the acquisition of B/E Aerospace. Demand continues to be, you know, pretty strong. I think airlines, especially in the premium category, are continuing to look for ways to distinguish themselves and to make the passenger experience more of their value proposition, and so that plays very well into the capabilities that you see at Collins. I will tell you that we've worked through some programs which had a difficult sort of certification, you know, set of requirements-
Yeah
... some bespoke sort of contracts. So we made very good progress on kind of getting those through the certification cycle in 2025. There's a handful or so more here in 2026 that we need to get through. From a supply chain perspective, we saw a nice uptick in sales in the second half of last year in that business on the back of sort of better production flow. So again, I think the business is well-positioned, and I think as people continue to reinforce the passenger experience, it provide more opportunity for that seating business.
Yeah. Well, we're certainly seeing that demand on the airline side, you know, part of our coverage as well. If we could just take a step back on Collins, I feel like we could talk about Collins all day, but it's the one segment that really crosses all the themes that we're talking about: aerospace, defense. We had this megatrends idea. When you think about the demand signals across that portfolio, are there areas that are interesting, reading the tea leaves, things investors should be kind of focusing more on? Anything to comment on there?
I think you're right. I think sometimes people strangely even overlook just how well-positioned Collins is and its breadth and scale within both commercial and defense, I might add. I gave you some of the statistics sort of upfront, right? I mean, 70% of its product segments, number one or number two in their spaces, 2x the content on the current generation platforms than the older ones. Continuing to grow that installed base. The out-of-warranty installed base today, over $100 billion. Just generating really strong aftermarket returns to allow it to continue to invest and protect those next-generation positions, you know, that it has. On the defense side, again, they support over 70% of the U.S. and allied, you know, airborne communications.
Maybe think of its mission systems business, its secure communications business. About 30% of those sales are FAR Part 12. So again, higher margin. Maybe just sort of step back. We've talked about the Department of Defense transformation sort of upfront here. You see them really pushing this convergence, if you will, between commercial and defense. How do you continue to drive commercial applications into defense? I think Collins is exceptionally well positioned to be able to do that, given its product history, given its placements on a number of the highest priority platforms in the DoD. You just saw recently, it's teaming with General Atomics to provide the autonomy on the Air Force's, you know, CCA program.
There are a number of things that it does at a high end on the commercial aerospace side, that are going to have application as you continue this transformation and convergence in the defense, you know, part of the world. I just think it's just exceptionally, you know, well positioned, a fantastic product portfolio, you know, and a business that we just think even has more runway and more potential to it.
Mm-hmm. Mm. Part of the marquee mega trend thesis.
Indeed. Indeed.
Can we just double-click on supply chain? I feel like supply chain keeps coming up. We heard it come up in the Textron presentation we did just before this. Maybe we just talk about at a broader level for RTX. Anything to flag across the company, any watch items? I guess that's kind of part A, and part B, just supply chain philosophy in general, as we're in a world where production rates across a lot of different products are going up.
Yeah. So supply chain is gonna be critical to all of the opportunities that I just talked about for the last half hour.
Yeah.
Just in terms of the philosophy, this is interesting. I was just speaking to our teams, you know, the other day. One of the mindset sort of shifts that I think we've undergone is to not talk about supply chain like it's some third party.
Yeah.
Like, we are our supply chain. When you go to our customers, their very explicit, you know, mandate to us is: We're paying you to manage the supply chain. They view them as us. And as a result, we've got to, yes, be out there holding our suppliers, you know, accountable for delivering. We've also got to be out there helping them. We've got to give them very clear demand signals. We can't have a sort of episodic ordering patterns. We've forward deployed hundreds of people into their shops, helping on things like, you know, manufacturing yields and inspections and the like, you know, how can we make it easier to make our products, right?
So again, there's a collaborative piece of this that I think we've got to continue to bring to bear in the supply chain if we really want to get to the levels that we need to, both on the commercial and the defense side. Maybe just sort of step back, like, you know, where are we seeing, you know, those areas that we pay particular attention to? Well, there's always pockets of disruption in the supply chain. It's what happens, you know, in a company and in an industry as complex, you know, as ours. But there are a few areas that we spend a lot of time watching, Jon. One's castings. And you've heard us talk about structural castings at Pratt, call after call, and again, they were up 17% YoY, you know, last year.
But castings, sort of writ large, is a constrained value stream across both, you know, commercial, aerospace, and defense. And so it's a part of our Collins business. It's a part of our Raytheon business. So making sure that we've got the right casting suppliers and capacity has been pretty critical. On the Raytheon side, clearly, rocket motors, right? That's sort of been an industry pinch point. Seen improvement in 2025, which has been great, but need to see even more improvement as we move forward because the rates are only gonna go up.
Yeah.
As I, as I said on our last call, in 2025, our top programs at Raytheon were up in terms of deliveries, 20% YoY, and we've got to do even more, you know, this year. So we need that value stream to continue to be healthy and step up. Microelectronics, another place that we focus heavily. I, I would say the lead times have been, have been good and have been healthy, but we're keeping an eye there just because of demand in the non-A&D space for microelectronics, wanting to make sure that, you know, we've got buffer stock, and they know what our demand is, and then we're not gonna fall behind anyone else in the priority, you know, priority order.
Mm-hmm.
And then maybe the last thing I would mention would just be, you know, critical minerals. I know everyone's been talking about that. We were thinking about this a couple of years ago, really kind of focused on the key ones where we needed to set up both buffer but additional suppliers out in the world. I think that the government has been a real partner in this as well. I really commend some of the deals that they've done. But we feel like we're covered there in the near medium term, but still some work to do in the longer term in setting up the partnerships and LTAs that we need.
Yeah... I wanted to ask about CORE.
Mm.
You know, it's something that we've heard on different conference calls. Maybe the first question is, just for the benefit of everybody, what exactly is CORE? And then the follow-up is gonna be just the progress and where it's going from here.
Yeah. Thank you. CORE is our operating system. It's our continuous improvement and lean operating system that's embedded in everything that we do. It's embedded in all of our functions. It's embedded, certainly, in our operations. It's about driving continuous improvement each and every day, stacking incremental improvements, you know, to improve productivity, improve efficiency, and ultimately, you know, improve deliveries and financial results. That's what CORE is. We reinvigorated it at the time of the merger. I think, you know, Raytheon had sort of its operating system, United Technologies had its, and frankly, we kind of brought them together and took a best of the best approach. I think on both sides, at that particular time, at the time of the merger, it could have used some bolstering.
And so, you know, we did that, and we've really been aggressive about deploying it, and we're really seeing it start to take hold in our company. I wanna say last year we did almost 12,000, I'll say, CORE events.
Mm.
An event is when you go in, and you've got a problem statement, or you've got something you're trying to address, and you get all the right constituencies together, and you have a process to work that problem to get to the right answer. And I've participated in these in our shops. I did one at Raytheon on the guidance section for AMRAAM, for instance, did another one at our Nacelle facility in Foley, Alabama. And I will tell you, it's inspiring to see the teams attack this, and it's a real democracy. They don't really care who's there in participating. You have to pull your weight, and you've got to help get to the right answer.
We've seen that really continue to take hold, you know, in the company, and we've got a ton of opportunities if we just step back and think about it.
Mm-hmm.
Right? I mean, we've got significant number of labor hours, right? You can imagine what a 1%, you know, productivity increase there would be.
Yeah.
Got $13 billion, you know, of inventory. Imagine what some incremental improvements there could mean in terms of free cash flow. We've talked about the ramp-up here on both commercial aero and defense. And, you know, in some cases, when you wanna go build out capacity to meet that demand, the lead times can be two-three years for tooling, test equipment, and the like. And so we've got to get really efficient at what our footprint looks like today to squeeze as much as we possibly can out of that.
Mm-hmm.
Sometimes that means bringing a team and just re-laying out an entire production floor for better flow because we don't have time to wait for another year and a half or two years for a new piece of equipment or a new piece of tooling. How do we get as efficient and productive as we possibly can with the assets that we have sort of in-house today? And I think, CORE is gonna be instrumental as we think about some of the framework agreements that we're talking about there.
Hmm.
One of the sort of next steps for us is to continue to deploy that into our supply chain, doing events, you know, collaboratively with our suppliers in their shops to drive the kind of efficiency that we need.
Sounds like we're in the early innings of CORE really having an impact.
Well, look, no, I think it is having an impact, Jon. If you just look at RTX last year, you know, 11% organic sales growth on flat headcount.
Yeah.
Okay? So we are starting to see the productivity benefits, but again, we wanna make it not like it's some special thing that you have to do. We wanna make it so that it's just ingrained in what we do each and every day, and so there's some opportunity there.
Got it. And sort of last but not least, maybe we could talk a bit about M&A and the portfolio at large, your views. Talk a little bit about adding, divesting businesses across the broader RTX portfolio. Any areas to prune, any technology gaps that you wanna kind of fill, capabilities to fill? You know, just offer some broad thoughts in general.
Yeah. As we step back and look at, you know, at RTX, it's six, almost six years now post-creation. We've got more conviction about the strength and composition of the portfolio than we did at the beginning.
Hmm.
And again, you talked about it upfront on sort of the marquee, you know, macro trends...
Yeah
... and how well-positioned we are there. So for us, it's not necessarily about what do we need to add to the portfolio? It's how do we get the absolute most out of the portfolio that we have in these leading positions? If you just look at each of our businesses, Pratt, Raytheon, and Collins, they have margin runway. You know, we talk about how do we get to our full potential, and it's about all of the things that we've talked about here for the last, you know, half hour or so.
Yeah.
But it's getting the most out of those businesses. So for us, it's about the $268 billion backlog and executing on that as flawlessly as we can, because we've got the right product positions, we've got the right, you know, you know, customer relationships, the demand is there, and so for us, it's about the execution. And so we think about our capital deployment, a lot of that is the E&D, both, you know, company and customer, and the CapEx needed to continue to get to the levels, you know, that we need. And when we talk about CapEx, it's not only just the, you know, the expansion of facilities and new testing and new equipment, it's continuing to drive our digital infrastructure.
Mm-hmm.
There's so much data that courses through both our products and our factories, and we continue to make investments on how we harness that data, connect all of our products and machines, so that we can drive better, high-quality, you know, decisions throughout, throughout the portfolio. So that's really where the focus is. As you know, we've done some pruning. You know, we've done some divestitures over the last couple of years, but really that's around making sure that we're prioritizing where we wanna put our investments, you know, in the future, and making sure that we're as focused and as lean as we can possibly be. But again, for us, the focus isn't on what we would add to the portfolio, it's on execution and innovating for future growth.
Yeah, that makes a tremendous amount of sense. And sorry, technology gaps or anything that you would flag, capability gaps that you think need filling out?
Well, we've got a, you know, 10, you know, cross-company sort of technology roadmaps-
Okay.
that we track each and every year, make sure they have the right funding, the right resources, things like advanced materials, things like additive manufacturing, autonomy, AI, things that cut across of all of our, all of our businesses.
Mm-hmm.
We wanna make sure that we're doing things in a unified, you know, way, leveraging the breadth and scale of the portfolio as best we can. So we're always on the lookout for maybe bolt-on type, you know, acquisitions that fit into sort of our core, technology strategy. You know, I talked about the Coyote program before the counter UAS.
Yeah.
That was actually born out of a technology acquisition that Raytheon did sort of many years ago, and it's ultimately now gonna become what we think is the next franchise program. So we're always on the lookout for things that we can go kind of scoop up and bolt into our existing portfolio. But again, feel very good about the technology roadmaps that we have, and we've got the balance sheet to continue to invest. As you know, we're in a long cycle business.
Mm-hmm.
You cannot miss a cycle.
Yeah.
You miss a cycle, you can get penalized for decades. So we've got to continue to invest and fill that pipeline at all technology readiness levels.
Yep, and the backlogs certainly shows that the technology is there.
Indeed.
We're just about done, Chris. I just wanna give you the floor for any kind of concluding last statements, tie anything together, what, whatever. Take us home.
Sure. Well, well, again, thanks for your time this morning. I loved your setup on the marquee megatrends. I couldn't agree more, but it's better that you said it than I said it. I can just agree with it. But again, a very, very well-positioned set of businesses, both commercial and aerospace, a $268 billion backlog, and some opportunities on the defense side that aren't even in that backlog today. So again, I'll just repeat what I said because it's important. It's about executing on our backlog and innovating for future growth, and I think that'll put us in position to drive long-term shareholder value.
That's a great place to end. Thank you so much-
Thank you.
for joining us today.
Appreciate your time.
Appreciate it.