A Look Inside the Epic Assembly Line of Airbus

bee

The strange arrangement of manufacturing and assembly...Built outside the US in parts, shipped in pieces and assembled in the US. "Made in USA" takes a back seat to "Assembled in the USA". Automakers follow the same formula.

In this it resembles many of the world’s largest manufacturers, which now tend to be global operations that pull together components from hundreds of factories in dozens of countries to create products sold around the world.

It’s an odd arrangement for many reasons, not least among them being the fact that Airbus could assemble its planes almost anywhere. The finished product is easy to move (it flies), and the hardest work of making it is buried in its components. The vertical stabilizer is made in Getafe, Spain. The wings come from Broughton, Wales. The front of the fuselage is made in Saint-Nazaire, France; the back, in Hamburg. What happens in Mobile doesn’t resemble manufacturing so much as the assembly of a particularly large and tremendously complicated piece of Ikea furniture. Here, the American workers attach the pieces of the airplane using tools and connectors, many of which are also imported from Europe.

and,

Airbus executives realized years ago that the company could benefit from capturing a larger share of America’s immense military budget. And so it embarked on a strategy of investing in the South, a part of the United States that, historically, hosted only the military half of the military-industrial complex.

a-look-inside-airbuss-epic-assembly-line

Ted

@bee & MFO Members: Same for Boeing !
Regards,
Ted
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner Isn't Very 'Made In The USA'
http://www.businessinsider.com/graphic-boeing-787-dreamliner-suppliers-2013-1