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Aviation History
1983
1983 - 0011.PDF
INDUSTRY Aerospace productivities compared According to the latest EEC statistics, Europe's aerospace industry is 55 per cent the size of the US industry, the world's biggest. The data are for 1980, and they show a European growth over 1979 of an astonishing 41 per cent. Surprisingly, this growth is not commented on in the report*. Indeed, the growth percentage has to be extracted by the reader, who may well be sceptical. Reviewing last year's EEC aerospace data, Flight noted that the "small print" did not include UK airframe output, because the UK Department of Industry had supplied data on parts and spares only. Our incredulity (January 16 issue, page 138) appears to have had some effect: the latest EEC re port shows without comment that the UK industry's final turnover in 1980 was up on 1979 by a staggering 61 per cent. The actual turnovers (European Currency Units- Ecus) were respectively 6,647 million compared with 4,129 million. This output brings the British industry into the lead—a lead which, according to the EEC, it lost to France in 1975. Good shape though the UK industry was in as the 1980s dawned, it wasn't grow ing 60 per cent a year. A Flight analysis and comparison of SBAC and Department of Industry aero space statistics (August 28 issue, pages 508 and 517) indi cates a 1979-1980 growth of 12 to 46 per cent, depending on whose figures you choose. The big jump in European aerospace output, as it appears in the EEC report, may thus be largely due to a change in accounting pro cedures inspired, we like to Jkm i-M litis HI -i Visible aerospace-industry productivity—1: Boeing flight-line at Everett think, by the last Flight analysis. But these are the best aerospace-industry data Europe has got, and nobody envies the EEC Commission staffs difficulties in trying to sort out the double-counting of European co-operation (is the value of German Airbus fuselages and British wings included in the Aerospatiale flyaway-Toulouse totals?), not to mention the obscurities of national reporting. For ex ample, Britain's Department of Industry says in statistical report PQ383 that the 1980 value of British aerospace- industry equipment output was £48 million. The SBAC says it was £1,406 million. Clearly, the industry itself could do more to standardise definitions and to help the EEC and individual govern ments to publish the mean ingful data on which good policy and planning and work- sharing decisions depend. Perhaps the European trade body Aecma could demon strate its usefulness by taking a stronger lead in this area. Meanwhile, there is one particularly interesting list (page 74) from which deduc tions about productivity can be drawn. It gives the turn over (sales) and workforces of the leading world aerospace companies, with a warning that "turnover/employment ratio is certainly not the best way of measuring produc tivity, since it conveniently overestimates the position of manufacturers which under take little R&D activity and/or carry out more work under licence or under subcontracts". But turnover divided by workforce is a pretty fair measure of com parative efficiency for com panies with similar products and production runs. It gives a rough feel for comparative in dustrial efficiency. Looking at the top ten world aerospace companies in order of sales, we find for 1980 the following thousand-Ecus per man (one Ecu in 1980 was Visible aerospace-industry productivity—2: Airbus flight-ring at Toulouse worth $1.39 or 60p):— Boeing 64 McDonnell Douglas 53 Lockheed 52 Pratt & Whitney 55 General Dynamics 40 British Aerospace 31 Aerospatiale 65 Rolls-Royce 36 Dassault 117 General Electric 75 The comparative efficiency of the leading aerospace nations emerges from this report as follows: USA 52; UK 32; France 75 (63 without Dassault); West Germany 45; Japan 46. We must add to the report's own caveat: allow ance must be made for differ ent degrees of subcontracting and value-adding. But even if the French figures do take credit for subcontractors' components and other statis tical funnies, the UK per formance can surely only go up. The efficiency to beat, even if the statistics are only half believable, is that of France's industry. And the company to watch is Boeing, barometer of the civil aero space industry's health, which has taken a dramatic turn for the worse since this EEC report was compiled. Boeing's workforce in 1980 was 106,300-up from 66,900 in 1977. Where will the baro meter go now, and will it ever show such a high swing again? J.M.R. * The European Aerospace Industry Tra ding Position and Figures, Commission staff working paper III/846/82-EN (final), Commission of the European Communi ties, Brussels, Belgium. FLIGHT International, 1 January 1983 11
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