Four Indian companies on EADS' Tier 1 list of engineering services suppliers
30 May 2008
Paris: European aerospace consortium, EADS, said Thursday it had selected 28 preferred and strategic suppliers for engineering services in a move aimed at providing it with "significant" cost reductions.
A company statement said that the first tier-one suppliers of 28 companies included four Indian and 24 EU-based companies. These were selected out of an existing pool of around 2,000 suppliers. "This is in line with both a continuation of EADS' global sourcing strategy and the Smart Buying objective of the Power8 programme," the statement said.
The number and size of work packages, which are given to these preferred suppliers, will increase gradually until 2010.
Currently, EADS spends about 2 billion euros ($3.12 billion) per year on engineering services, which notably entail research, modelling, aerodynamics studies and aircraft design.
EADS is the parent of aircraft manufacturer Airbus and also includes the world's largest helicopter supplier, Eurocopter, and EADS Astrium as Group companies.
Loss-making Airbus has embarked on a cost-saving programme, dubbed Power8, which aims at saving 2.1 billion euros annually. Under the provisions of the programme Airbus is due to slash 10,000 jobs by 2010.
EADS said it plans to announce additional cost-saving measures by July end.
