ChinaDaily
The European
aircraft manufacturer Airbus has
said it will put more Chinese in important positions at its assembly plant in Tianjin, as part of its effort to increase localization in
China.
The Airbus A320
family final assembly line in Tianjin (FALC) is an Airbus joint venture with a
Chinese consortium, composing of the Tianjin Free Trade Zone and China Aviation
Industry Corp.
It already
employs over 400 Chinese, all of them trained to meet Airbus standards, with
more than 100 of them qualified enough to work independent of foreign experts'
inspections.
According to Jean
Luc Charles, general manager of FALC, most Chinese employees have undergone the
strictest of training at Airbus
factories in Hamburg, Germany
and Toulouse, France.
The number of
foreigners at the Tianjin
plant will gradually be cut to fewer than 50, from the more than 100 when the
plant opened, said Charles.
He added that
among the five senior management of FALC reporting to him directly, there are
currently three Chinese, and more Chinese will be appointed to management level
positions.
Regarding the
middle management team, Chinese fill 18 of the 25 management positions and, at
the very basic level, all work teams are lead by Chinese.
Things have gone
smoothly at the Tianjin
plant since it began production in 2008. By June 2011, it had delivered 52 A320
jet liners, which are being operated by nine Chinese airlines. It has a monthly
production capacity of three of the aircraft.
In 2011, the
plant is expected to deliver 36 of the planes, and plans call for more than 100
to be delivered by 2012.
Airbus says it is
committed to training more talented people for the aviation sector in China.
Its engineering
center in Beijing
(Airbus Beijing Engineering Centre) has over 150 Chinese engineers involved in
the design work on Airbus jetliners. The company expects to have more work for
Chinese engineers if expansion goes as planned.
Another of its
joint ventures - Harbin Hafei Airbus Composite Manufacturing Centre, which produces
composite materials for aviation - has signed a contract for rear passenger
doors and other components for the Airbus A350 XWB. By 2015, this joint venture
will employ 600 Chinese and handle part of the 5 percent workload for the A350
XWB, which Airbus commits to China
aviation industry.
"Several
vice-presidents and department heads of Airbus China are Chinese. Important
departments involving customer affairs, marketing, and public relations are
made up almost entirely of Chinese," said Laurence Barron, president of
Airbus China.
"For the
most part, they're excellent people and many have been selected to work in
factories in Europe, to receive training,
while at the same time experiencing the Airbus corporate culture and learning
our operational methods. These people will be appointed to higher positions
after returning to China
- an important step in our localization."