Airbus manufacturing: From “mission impossible” to market leadership
When Airbus was created four decades ago, one of its challenges was to create a robust industrial system capable of efficiently producing the new A300 jetliner, while also ensuring its participating nations were satisfied with the work shares assigned to them.
As no such system existed in Europe at the time, many called this a “mission impossible” – but Airbus founders Felix Kracht and Roger Béteille successfully implemented innovative approaches that distributed the industrial processes across the region.
Partners would design and manufacture specific aircraft elements in order to reduce costly duplication and optimise specialisation. The partners also would produce complete sub-assemblies, eliminating competition among sites to perform the final assembly of aircraft. While final assembly is a highly visible – and prestigious – part of the aircraft manufacturing process, it would have been too costly and unwieldy at the time to establish such a site in more than one of the participating Airbus nations.
Since that time, Airbus has used innovation to leverage the skills and know-how of its network of manufacturing locations – which now extends well beyond Europe. To streamline processes and ensure that the best methods are shared company-wide, Airbus created trans-national and cross-functional organisational units with responsibility for substantial work packages.
Already a leader in the utilisation of computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing, Airbus also has developed a host of tools using the digital mock-up and e-technology – allowing the entire supply chain to benefit from its expertise.
Furthermore, Airbus’ lean manufacturing techniques will drastically optimise the design, manufacture and assembly of its new generation A350 XWB aircraft. The A350 XWB Final Assembly Line (FAL) should achieve a 30 per cent reduction in lead-time compared to the A330/A340 FAL.
