Airbus Multinational Cooperation

AIRBUS MULTINATIONAL COOPERATION

Airbus is an aircraft manufacturing company, subsidiary of EADS - the European airspace company. It was established in Toulouse as an association of European aviation firms. In 1967 French, German and British governments decided to build it to compete with American domination of the aviation industry. Nowadays Airbus shares almost the half of world aircraft production.

 Organizational culture

Airbus is proof of the great potential that comes when individuals from different background work cooperatively to tackle and overcome the most challenging obstacles. All Airbus employees strive to be consistent with “theAirbusway,” which is a set of guiding principles to create one global company culture where everyone shares common values, behaviors and ways of working.

Among its core tenets, “theAirbusway” encourages employees to: deliver customer value, develop oneself and others, drive improvement and innovation, practice teamwork.

As a responsible corporate citizen and industry leader, Airbus’ day-to-day operations are guided by a strong commitment to integrity, transparency and professionalism across its operations: each and every employee is committed to defending high ethical standards in business relations inside, as well as outside, the company.

 Organizational Structure

Airbus had a complicated centralized organizational structure until 2006 and due to that mismanagement problems occurred, such as delays in production. In order to respond to the managerial challenge Airbus was reorganized into a more decentralized company, with leaner structure and giving higher responsibility and decision power to lower levels.

A New Organizational Structure - Changes in 2007

The delays of A380 revealed many problems of the company. One of them was the inefficient management system. Airbus and EADS decided not to turn a blind eye on it and implement some important changes in the company's structure. The first steps towards a new organizational structure were taken in 2007. The main objective was to achieve better integration and cooperation between the divisions located in different countries. To do so the number of the international leaders per function was reduced to one – dual CEO structure was abandoned. Seven national Centers of Excellence (COEs) (“facility or an entity that provides leadership, evangelization, best practices, research, support and/or training for a focus area” were reduced to four transnational centers. Such structure enabled Airbus to ensure the coherence of strategy. Further were created new transnational entities in Engineering, Manufacturing and Programs improving the company’s ability to act as aircraft architect at design, industrialization and supply chain levels. The managing structure of the company as a whole has become less leaner with fewer management levels. For further integration of the National Entities their representatives became members of the Airbus Executive Committee.

Airbus Organizational Structure includes:

• Business development and strategy

• Communications

• Engineering, Operations and Technology

• Finance

• Human Resources and Administration

• Internal Governance

• International

• Law department

• Public Policy

Customer, innovation and quality are the main elements in the ADN Airbus from now. A new section in the area of operation cart will improve the communication with suppliers. With this new structure it is now possible to better coordinate the production process and respond to market changes, since the company has become more flexible. Airbus’ new organizational structure seems to be more favorable in comparison with its main rival, Boeing.

 Airbus Background

In the early 1960s, Airbus was a concept – it stood for a social dream in Europe: making air travel affordable for the wider public and no longer just for the rich. Only thereafter did this concept and dream transform into an ambitious industrial project. It was obvious that the only way to realize the goal of building a passenger aircraft, which could compete with American manufacturers such as Boeing, Lockheed and Douglas, was through European cooperation.

Today, some 40-plus years later, Airbus stands for a unique European industrial success story and is the world’s leading manufacturer of commercial