If there is one thing the aerospace industry has learned over the past few years it is the scary things that come with outsourcing. On the one hand, everyone wants to save money and drive costs lower. But as we have seen, in the short term trying to save money can be like fool’s gold. This is a very expensive and complex industry. For a company like Bombardier, it took the first steps to global outsourcing twenty years ago.
Eric Martel, SVP Commercial Aircraft at Bombardier explains what lessons they learned over the years. He also explains why they are comfortable with the CSeries project meeting its milestones. The company has a LOT of its people based in China and even more Shenyang people in Canada working on the project. A smaller team is at Alenia – but the project management is very tight. The program is moving to parts manufacturing on schedule. Bombardier’s people sound more confident every time we speak with them.
