India's potential to attract aerospace investments, interview with Eaton (U.S.)

[jha]

India's potential to attract aerospace investments, interview with Eaton (U.S.)

07 May 2010 8ak: Boeing’s 2009 - 2028 forecasts predicts (image (c) Boeing) that Asia will require an additional 9,000 planes costing about $1.2 trillion and the region will account for 31% of global aircraft sales in this period. However, this does not guarantee aerospace investments in India as a recent PriceWaterHouse report said that not all countries that are being sold to, will also see sourcing deals. Within Asia alone, India faces tough competition from countries like Singapore, UAE and China in getting companies to invest here. To get an insight in to what global Aerospace companies think of India as an aerospace investment destination, 8ak Editor, Manu Sood, spoke with Eaton Corporation’s Aerospace Group President, Brad Morton and Einar Johnson, Vice President - Customer Solutions Service about Eaton’s strategy for Aerospace group and prospects for India. The following is a combination of 8ak research and a telephone interview.

For those who dont know the company, Eaton Corporation is a diversified power management company with 2009 sales of $11.9 billion. Eaton is a global technology leader in electrical components and systems for power quality, distribution and control; hydraulics components, systems and services for industrial and mobile equipment; aerospace fuel, hydraulics and pneumatic systems for commercial and military use; and truck and automotive drivetrain and powertrain systems for performance, fuel economy and safety.

Eaton's Aerospace division was added through an acquisition of Aeroquip Vickers about a decade ago. Since then Eaton’s Aerospace has established itself as a leading supplier of hydraulics, motion control and fuel systems. In 1999, Eaton's sales were US$187 million and this grew to $1.6 billion out of $11.9 billion (Eaton Corporation’s 2009 total sales).

Eaton has a strong presence in India with manufacturing and sales locations for Electrical, Hydraulics, Automotive and Truck transmission businesses. Additionally, Eaton also has a strong engineering team in India comprising around 700 engineers who undertake design, development and customer interface activities to support its global activities. Out of that Aerospace has a dedicated team of engineers who support global projects.

Specific to aerospace and outside of its commercial programs, Eaton supplies hydraulics and fuel systems to India’s Jaguar, Harrier Hawk, Sea King, Advanced Light Helicopter, Intermediate Jet Trainer (IJT) and Light Combat Aircraft programs. Even people who know Eaton dont know that they also supply several Russian platforms, including the export version of the Mi-17s and Mi-171s helicopters.

“We’re not just a hydraulics components company,” said Brad Morton, Eaton Corporation’s Aerospace Group president. “We provide electrical components and cockpit panels. We provide fuel management systems for aircraft and for ground support of aircraft. We’re focused on all aspects of power management, and we’re using a lot of the same concepts and techniques around systems management and systems integration and expanding our portfolio to be a partner with the OEM supplier.”

“India is a very important part of our aerospace design and development, as well as our defence markets,” Morton said. “Our engineering team in India supports all of our platforms, and they are the design centre for many of our components. Our strategy is to increase our sourcing from India by growing our component and supplier base and establish a clear presence with an increased focus on the military segment.”

"As primary aerospace manufacturers such as Airbus and Boeing increase their investments in Asia, their suppliers and service partners will likely follow them. Eaton is already present in India and moreover, an estimated 15 percent of Eaton Corporation’s global revenues are derived from Asia. Eaton is looking to expand its aerospace business in India by building on a well-established manufacturing, sales and technical base in the country”, said Einar Johnson, vice president of customer solutions and services for Eaton’s Aerospace Group.

Coupled with the demand for new aircraft in India is projected annual growth of 8 to 10 percent in the maintenance, repair and overhaul market. One significant change that the company sees on the horizon for India is an improvement in aircraft maintainability and logistics, particularly for its military fleet.

Eaton’s Aerospace group currently does a lot of design and support work for our global business from India. As their content expands, they have the potential to move to assembly and testing. The more systems capability they have, the more attractive they become for OEMs to work with them.

“We are willing and eager to move in to India to work with the supply base and logistics and regional repair facilities,” said Einar Johnson, vice president of customer solutions and services for Eaton’s Aerospace Group. “Indian companies like HAL, Mahindra and Tata have ambitious aerospace programs. As India buys more western aircraft, Eaton will follow its partners as they expand there.”

So far Eaton has found India to be a favourable environment for business, despite its reputation at times for being overly bureaucratic. To India’s credit, Morton thinks that having a more stringent network of rules and regulations in place has been beneficial for the country’s burgeoning aircraft industry. “In general, processes and procedures may be more bureaucratic than we typically encounter, but we understand that it’s controlled growth, and that it’s deliberate and sustainable,” Morton said. “This may have helped India grow despite the current global financial crisis.”

8ak - Indian Defence News

 

[!!craft!!]

this is great news

 

[Hulk]

Well it is like this, if you make serious efforts to develop and industry and with the kind of economic strength we have, I think we will make it, but it will take some time at-least 5 years to see the effect.

 

[Donatello]

There is a potential for everything in South Asia. We are the smartest and most hard working people on the planet. The question is that none of our leaders are up to the mark to tap that potential. And when they do, it's just because they were making money in it.

 

[genetic_nomad]

There is a potential for everything in South Asia. We are the smartest and most hard working people on the planet. The question is that none of our leaders are up to the mark to tap that potential. And when they do, it's just because they were making money in it.

sad truth indeed

 

[Isaq Khan]

Aerospace faces a looming shortage of engineers

The assembly lines may not be on the verge of grinding to a halt, or the launch pads about to be put into mothballs. But major problems in the supply of engineers in the aerospace industry are undoubtedly looming on the horizon.

For an industry whose self-image is one of thrusting achievement and pushing the technological envelope, the realities of company demographics make sobering reading.

The workforce is ageing and the point is approaching at which the number of retirees will no longer be matched by the arrival of new entrants from universities and colleges.


Industry bodies and individual companies, particularly in the USA, are having to go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that future generations of engineers will emerge from the educational system.

Despite these efforts, however, the next few years are likely to see the industry facing real problems in finding sufficient high-quality personnel to fill the gaps in its ranks.


This skills shortage will be one of the topics explored at the Aerospace Testing, Design & Manufacturing exhibition at Germany's New Munich Trade Fair Centre this week.

Organised by Flight's sister company Reed Exhibitions, the seventh iteration of the annual event will see students being bussed in from nearby universities to talk to companies such as EADS, Ruag Aerospace and MTU, which will have human resources personnel on hand to scan the CVs of potential recruits.

Poor Image

As is frequently the case with complex problems, there is no one reason for the looming global shortfall in aerospace engineers. Attitudes among school students and their parents, the vagaries of national educational systems and a poor or non-existent image of engineering among the general public all play a part.

The scale of the problem is outlined by Marion Blakey, chief executive of US trade body Aerospace Industries Association.

Almost 60% of the US aerospace workforce is aged 45 or over, she says, and around 25% of those are eligible for retirement now.

The problem is spread across all the industry's sectors, says Blakey. "Aerospace was a brilliant career choice in the USA for the Baby Boomers and the Second World War generation before them. They tended to come in and make a full career in the industry." However, as they begin to leave en masse, "it's time to get a fresh crop".

And that is where the problem begins. An estimated 77,000 engineers of all disciplines graduate annually in the USA. Of those, more than 20,000 are in specialisms of no interest to aerospace, while roughly another 15,000 are foreign students who immediately return home on completion of their educations.

That leaves an annual available supply of roughly 40,000 engineers. Aerospace has to fight for those potential new staff with sectors such as computing, high-end telecoms and the automotive industry.

Blakey's colleague Jeremiah Gertler, AIA's acting vice-president, national security, notes that one of AIA's member companies will require 10,000 engineers a year for the next five years to cope with the number of staff picking up their pensions.

In the UK, which has seen its manufacturing base shrink steadily since the 1980s, the problem is slightly different. Allan Cook, chief executive of Cobham and president of the Society of British Aerospace Companies, speaking at the organisation's annual conference in London in March on the skills shortage of engineers, said: "The biggest single challenge is the lack of an engineering skills base [in the UK]. Engineering graduates are choosing other professions such as IT and financial services."

And Thorsten Möllmann, EADS vice-president, talent and executive management/human resources marketing, cites the general decline in birth-rates in western European countries as posing a long-term difficulty: there will simply be a smaller pond in which companies can go fishing for talent.

One problem faced by the industry internationally is that of image. Engineering is not on the radar screens of most school pupils as a career, partly because there are few visible role models. Engineers are never portrayed in soap operas, for example, notes Möllmann only half-jokingly.

Insofar as young people have any mental image of engineering, it tends to be negative. For some time in Europe, mention of engineering has conjured up images of dirty hands and poor pay. "The tasks of an engineer are not well understood," says Möllmann.

"A lack of public awareness exists about our industry that feeds several misconceptions" agrees Andy Leather, SBAC's director, Aerospace Innovation and Growth Team Programmes. "This is partly because we are not so good at singing our own praises, but also because sometimes we can be a little too complicated in explaining the exciting innovations that our industry develops.

"In simple terms this is an industry that matters, that makes a significant difference to the performance of our overall economy and that creates wealth for our nation."

In The Family

In the UK, a remarkably high percentage of young people entering engineering have parents or relatives already in that field. This strongly suggests that those who do have some insight into what engineering entails are sufficiently enthused to enter the sector.

A similar comment comes from the AIA's Blakey: "Once you get Jet A in your veins people seem to love it and tend not to leave."

Engineering 2
© Tom Campbell

Aerospace companies, she says, have lower staff turnover rates than other industries because of the "tremendous fulfilment" their jobs can bring. "You know what you're designing is of fundamental importance to the country's security and economy. People can walk out of an airport on to the tarmac and see a gorgeous bird that they've helped to make."

Get aerospace in front of young people and give them a glimpse of what it involves and there seems to be a good chance of enticing them to join it.

There is one exception to this rule. Ironically, given the UK experience of parental involvement breeding interest in engineering among youngsters, the opposite seems to apply in the USA as far as aerospace is concerned. This is a result, the AIA believes, of the previously highly cyclical nature of the industry.

With the end of the Cold War in the late 1980s and early 1990s resulting in major lay-offs in the US defence aerospace sector, it seems that employees caught up in that trauma actively advise their children against going into aerospace, for fear of them being caught up in a repetition of the downturn.

The cyclical nature of the aerospace sector has passed into the realms of urban legend and is now much reduced, says Blakey. The civil sector, which accounts for 60% of orders, is international, growing and stable.

So, how can students be energised into looking at aerospace as a viable career option, and have them take the necessary subjects at school to prepare them for it?

In both the UK and USA there has been a trend for school students to shun subjects perceived as "difficult", such as maths and sciences. The same applies at universities, where engineering degrees tend to require more hours in the lecture theatre than arts subjects and are thus less attractive to many.

The AIA is trying to tackle this at source. It is lobbying powerful Congressional committee heads as part of the current revamping of the US education budget, urging them to take steps to strengthen the teaching of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. This would involve more recruitment and training of teachers in those subjects, plus the creation of specialist schools.

It is also urging that retired aerospace scientists and engineers be offered a second career in the classroom as mentors and support for teachers.

"Our strategic aim is to raise the whole lake," by increasing the numbers of people taking these subjects, says Gertler. They could be introduced to aerospace when they reach the age of thinking about college majors.

The Right Curriculum

At a local level, the industry is also going "literally school district by school district" urging schools to put the right type of curriculum in place, says Gertler.

At the same time it is trying to make aerospace fun again. Programmes such as the Space Shuttle have succeeded almost too well in making trips into space routine, he says. They no longer excite interest or ambition among the young.

With this in mind, AIA organises the annual Team America Rocketry Challenge. This year's target: for school students to design a rocket capable of launching to a height of 75ft (24m) with a payload of two raw eggs and returning them - undamaged - to the ground.

"I never expected when I came here to run defence policy that I would be running the world's largest rocketry contest," says Gertler. (The winners of the US competition will meet their UK counterparts at July's Farnborough air show.)

In the UK, companies already work well with schools and universities, says the SBAC, but could do better. The organisation is working to put in place a more robust strategy to ensure coherence across this sector and is helping develop the National Skills Academy for Manufacturing, which aims to simplify the currently fragmented and complex arrangements for skills and training funding.

In addition it is embarking on a campaign to raise awareness of the industry among the public and the media to promote the contribution aerospace and defence make to local and national economies.

Industry on both sides of the Atlantic stresses that there are exciting, well-paid aerospace jobs available to anyone who possesses the necessary talent.

It seems certain that it will take a concerted, and probably long-term, strategy bringing together governments, companies and educational authorities to ensure that students know that they even exist.

Aerospace faces a looming shortage of engineers

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I have read a statement by US aviation body that as the USA and also the world facing shortage of skilled persons and India can fulfill this gap as India is traditionally good with hi tech and knowledge driven segments.

Indians has craze for knowledge and learning.

Also we will offer a low cost option.

That's why government is opening many green field projects where Indians will be trained in Institutes and have in house facilities one of the best in the world.

 

[Isaq Khan]

Perambalur Aero Park

Website: Chennai Aero Park - A vision of the future
Developer: GVK Perambalur SEZ Pvt. Ltd.
Location: Chennai
Area : 4000 acres

Spread over 4000 acres. It is strategically located at the apex of the areo triangle between Chennai, Bangalore and Hyderabad with the best road, rail and port connectivity. The areospace ecosystem is also expected to create direct and indirect employment for over 1,00,000 people of areospace and avionics.

The aero park will have synergy of the best aerospace & avionics technologies in the world and will be conceived as a Public - Private partnership entity (PPP) with participation from Governments, Public and Private companies.

Design & Engineering City:
150 - 200 Tier 1 and Tier 2 engineering firms that provide niche solutions to the market.
Residential complex for 10,000 engineers.

Manufactring Center:
Local & global sub-systems & component suppliers
Materials processing zomnes, stamping, forging, certification & testing plants.

Satellite MRO Facility:
250 acre facility near the green field airport
Run way access

R&D Testing Facility:
Joint ventures with leading research institutions
Virtual Simulation centers, rapid prototyping & manufacturing

Infrastructure Support System:
International convention center, global residential village, parks & water recycling systems, captive power generation complex, open-air theatre, sports complex, fitness centers and other integrated amenities.

 

[Isaq Khan]

Durgapur Aerotropolis will serve as hub for eastern regions

Our Bureau

Kolkata, April 6

The proposed Rs 10,000-crore Durgapur Aerotropolis project, the country's first airport city, would serve as a feeder route for airlines operating from eastern regions to other parts of the country, according to Mr Subrata Paul, CEO, Bengal Aerotropolis Project Ltd (BAPL).

BAPL is developing a route map for the airport in consultation with its 26 per cent equity partner and technical support provider Changi Airport International Private Ltd, Mr Paul said, adding that the route map would be presented to the domestic airlines in September.

He was speaking to media persons here recently on the sidelines of an interactive session, organised by the Confederation of India Industry, with Mr Wen Chi Ong, Ambassador of Taiwan in India.

“The new airport would serve as a feeder route for airlines travelling from Guwahati to Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and Bhubaneswar,” Mr Paul said. He, however, ruled out the possibility of a Kolkata-Durgapur transit.

Construction at the project is expected to start from June, he said.

The bidders for the project are L&T, Simplex Infrastructure, Tantia Constructions Ltd and Hindustan Construction Company.

Of the 2,362 acrees required in the first phase, over 1,000 acre has been acquired so far. “We are hopeful of acquiring another 400-700 acres by June,” Mr Paul said.

While there was some discontent among the land losers on the compensation packages, the issue was likely to be sorted out soon, he added.

The airport is expected to be operational by December end.

Taiwan trade office

Meanwhile, Mr Wen Chi Ong said that Taiwan was looking at setting up its third trade office in Kolkata by 2011. At present, it has trade offices in Mumbai and Chennai.

Taiwan would like to position itself as the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) for IT brands in India, Mr Ong said. Some of the popular Taiwanese brands present in the Indian market are Acer, HTC, BenQ, Delta and CEC.

India-Taiwan bilateral trade in 2009 amounted to $4.16 billion, which was only 1.09 per cent of Taiwan's total foreign trade in the year, he said.

The Hindu Business Line : Durgapur Aerotropolis will serve as hub for eastern regions

 

[Isaq Khan]

Aerospace university to be set up in Gujarat

AHMEDABAD: Gujarat is set to become a seat of learning for aviation studies. The state will house India’s first aerospace university near Valsad in south Gujarat — presently, there are only two such universities in the world.

Gujarat Vittal Innovation City (GVIC), a joint venture between state government and a company promoted by a former Gujarat cadre bureaucrat, has tied up with leading aviation intelligence provider Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) to develop world’s largest aerospace university. The Rs 400-crore project will be a part of GVIC’s upcoming special economic zone.

“The company intends to start work on the project in 2010, which happens to be the golden jubilee year of Gujarat. The project will be commissioned by the end of 2012,” said Pankaj Sharan, chief operating officer of GVIC.

The university will offer short-term as well as long-term courses of integrated multi-disciplinary education and training, says CAPA South Asia chief Kapil Kaul, adding, “The courses would include pilot training, air traffic control, maintenance, repairing and overhauling of aircraft, customer service, aviation law among others. Besides, an airstrip of 1,800 metre is also being planned for a flying school.”

CAPA will bring in expertise from international institutes like US-based Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University (aerospace engineering), New Zealand’s Airways International (air traffic training) and UK’s Oxford Aviation Academy (pilot training) to Gujarat. A detailed evaluation of numerous sites across India was done before finalising the location. Gujarat was chosen due to its proximity to Mumbai, availability of land and good infrastructure — the state already has three flying clubs. Apart from the university, GVIC will also house a dedicated Helicopter City, which will facilitate research and development, manufacturing and maintenance apart from providing ancillary support to business jets and helicopters.

Aerospace university to be set up in Gujarat - Ahmedabad - City - The Times of India

 

[yashchauhan]

^^^there also newly opened in bangalore

 

[IndianArmy]

India will soon emerge as one among the aero space power, TATA is into this field, HAL, Then Mahindra is into this field, Now India will boost ahead

 

[UKIndian]

Great News for India and many more on its way!

 

[Trichy]

i heard a news long before that a Auro-City will be built in Tamil Nadu, near Perambalur. Boeing is also have a plant there. i dont have a source, but i read this news way back...