Airbus Helicopters has opened a new blade manufacturing facility at the Paris-Le Bourget site in France with an investment of more than €100m.
The facility spans across 18ha and is designed to produce blades for all range of Airbus helicopters.
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Built as part of Airbus’ industrial strategy, the 35,000m² hangar facility will use both automation and cobotisation processes, which enable people and robots to work together, to perform operations.
The Paris-Le Bourget site expects to accommodate more flexible work loads as a result of work-based production rather than product-based production process.
The blade-specific specialisation site currently employs 640 staff, 100 students, interns and temporary workers to produce and repair roughly 4,000 blades a year.
It relocates Airbus’ activities from La Courneuve site in France and aims to transform its organisation of work, industrial processes, and eventually, the company’s competitiveness.
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By GlobalDataThe Paris-Le Bourget site also intends to reduce production costs and manufacturing cycles for helicopters.
In a separate development, Airbus Helicopters announced that its third H160 prototype has received a fresh coat of paint and features a ‘carbon’ livery in order to join the Airbus A350 XWB MSN2 flight-test aircraft.
The prototype was built using advanced composite materials provided by Airbus partner Hexcel.
The Airbus H160 represents the first civil helicopter featuring a full composite fuselage, which includes a lighter fuel-saving airframe, and offers performance optimisation and easy maintenance.
