Business is booming for Indian manufacturer Mahindra, with the company securing several different deals at this weeks Pairs Air Show with some of the world's largest aerospace companies.
Mahindra has scored deals with aerospace companies Airbus, GE Aviation, and Magellan with all three deals signed at the International Paris Air Show.
Airbus
The deal with European company Airbus is for Mahindra to manufacture and supply metallic components that will be fitted to Airbus aircraft.
Mahindra’s Chairman and Managing Director Anand Mahindra described the deal as “a breakthrough”.
“Some years ago we decided to plunge into this business of aero parts,” he told Bloomberg TV journalist Abha Bakaya. “We acquired a plant from Australia, dismantled it, brought it in, set it up in Bangalore,” he said.
“All through an act of faith, if you will. “Not with orders in the bank. “But we were confident that once we invested and created a world-class facility in Bangalore the customers would come. “So it was a field of dreams in a sense.”
Anand Mahindra told Abha Bakaya that the deal had taken nearly five years “of a very lengthy and rigorous process of process qualification, parts validation, and so on.”
He said that the close collaboration with Airbus will give Mahindra “the credentials to get jobs with other people as well”.
He said Airbus and Boeing have large backlogs of orders that those companies need to fill, and that the contract with Mahindra will enable them to do so.
He also said that the deal gives India an “enormous” potential to become a hub of the aerospace industry.
“[The] world aircraft manufacturers are brim-full of capacity and they desperately need to increase the source of parts from reliable suppliers.”
GE Aviation
Mahindra’s deal with American company GE Aviation calls for the two firms to collaborate in making aero structures at the afore-mentioned factory in Bangalore.
The already-existing Memorandum of Understanding between Mahindra and GE Aviation called for them to collaborate on potential opportunities. The new deal has them collaborating to manufacture small, complex, metallic structural sheet details and assemblies.
“The establishment of this agreement marks a key step in the development of a long term relationship to support existing and potential new opportunities by adding Mahindra to our international supply chain with first hardware due in 2015,” says Executive Sourcing Leader for GE Aviation’s Composites Value Stream Stefanie Darlington.
Group President and CEO of Mahindra Aerospace and Defence Sector and Group Executive Board member S P Shukla said, “This agreement takes GE and us to the next stage in our efforts to create value for aerospace OEMs and Tier 1 worldwide.”
Executive Director and CEO of Mahindra Aerospace Arvind Mehra said, “Manufacture of components, assemblies and aerostructures is an integral part of our vision. While this agreement makes us part of GE’s supply chain, we are also working to collaboratively leverage our respective capabilities on assembly work packages for A&D majors.”
Magellan Aerospace
The agreement with Canadian company Magellan Aerospace consists of a Memorandum of Understanding between the two companies to develop a framework to collaborate in developing new aero structure business opportunities.
Magellan will supply large, complex machined components from its European and North American factories, and detailed machine parts from its already-existing joint ventures in India with API and Triveni.
Mahindra will provide sheet metal and fabricated detailed parts to support these assemblies, while also developing a structural assembly capacity at its factory in Bangalore.
Haydn Martin, “We believe this partnership capitalises on the established technical experience of Magellan, with Mahindra’s emerging Indian capabilities, to deliver a unique, cost-effective solution to support our global customer base,” Magellan’s Vice President Business Development in Europe Haydn Martin said.
Mahindra’s Director of Business Development in Aerostructures Stephen Roebuck said, “This new agreement allows us to accelerate the development of a major new aerospace structures capability in India and to provide cost effective solutions to the global aerospace industry.”
