Airbus shake-up its parts manufacturing network.
Airbus has launched the biggest shake-up of its manufacturing network in more than a decade, with large-parts activities reorganized in France and Germany and some small-parts production hived off ahead of a possible sale.
See also: Airbus completes A321XLR’s first large structure.
The European planemaker said on Wednesday it would combine aerostructure assembly in France under one entity, bringing major fuselage parts plants in St Nazaire and Nantes together with the worldwide operations of its Stelia subsidiary, Reuters reported.
In Germany, its Premium Aerotec unit will be split, with part of it combined with manufacturing plants in Stade and some of the large Hamburg factory, and the rest folded into a new business specialising in small mass-produced “detail” parts.
See also: Airbus increases range and MTOW the A220-300.
“We are in the process of reviewing different ownership structures to identify the best possible solution,” a spokesman said, referring to the new Germany-based detail-parts spin-off.
Those parts can range from small generic items like metal brackets costing a few dollars to complex machined items costing tens of thousands, such as those made in the highly automated Varel plant in Germany.
Also included in the new spin-off are part of the Augsburg plant in Germany and the Brasov facility in Romania.
Discussions are also continue about manufacturing operations in Spain.
The shake-up comes two months after Chief Executive Guillaume Faury declared aerostructures, which includes the manufacturing of fuselage parts, to be “core”.
Once considered the less valuable end of the aerospace spectrum, aerostructures are considered vital to the aerodynamically complex, decarbonised designs of the future.
The rethink draws a line under efforts to sell the whole of Stelia and PremiumAerotec – both carved out in 2009.
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