Paris Air Show
Aerospace |
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Message
from Edmond Marchegay, CEO of Intertechnique
While the Air Show doesn't feature major new aircraft for military or commercial transport this year, there are many new smaller aircraft being shown. This is not a function of the show, but simply timing for the various programs.
Our organization, Groupe Intertechnique, spends an average of 10% of revenues on research and development. Traditionally, 25% of our R & D have been funded by military programs, 75% by others. My message to the industry is this. Hard times have made us better and we can be better still. Even though things are easier today, we must still continue to progress toward new improvements. In the past ten years, we have all worked very hard to gain more efficiencies in the production end. Now we should place as much emphasis on gaining efficiencies in research and development. All of us in the industry spend a lot of money on R&D, whether from our own internal funds or through government funding. The efficiencies we can gain will produce a direct improvement in the income of our companies, as the research and development directly impacts the last line of our balance sheet. One way we can move in this direction is to work more together, creating
joint teams with the aircraft manufacturers and big systems manufacturers.
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This year's Paris
Air Show features 100 more exhibitors than the previous show. In 1995, we
had 1740 exhibitors, this year we have 1850 or so. There has been no square
footage available for the past five months. All of this signals that the
aeronautical industry is in better shape.
The industry has
been enduring a decrease in military aerospace which is, fortunately, less
than the increase in the commercial sector. The military cuts take away
some research and development funding. When R & D is reduced, the industry
may anticipate problems.