According to a report published today on the Indian business newspaper site, LiveMINT.com, Airbus SAS intends to move some 20% of its design work to low-cost economies, the majority to its engineering centre in Bangalore, India by 2012. The object of this move is to reduce costs and improve competitiveness.
Today, Indian companies – and over 1,500 Indian employees – contribute to virtually all Airbus aircraft programmes. The Airbus Engineering Centre India Pvt. Ltd. (AECI) – a 100 per cent Airbus-owned subsidiary – is a recent example of this ongoing commitment. The centre works hand-in-hand with other Airbus Engineering offices around the world, as well as with the Indian aviation industry. As of early 2009, 100 people were working at the facility – including home-grown engineers and other employees – and this number is expected to grow to 400 over the next four years.
The Bangalore-based centre focuses on the development of advanced capabilities in the areas of modelling and simulation, covering such areas as flight management systems, computational fluid dynamics (CFD), as well as digital simulation and visualisation – which are critical factors in the design and production of high-performance aircraft such as the A380 (pictured) and the A350 XWB.