STEWART PENNEY / LONDON
Merger will turn company into "proper business"
Proposals to change Eurofighter into a prime contractor have been approved, with Filippo Bagnato, Alenia Aeronautica chief operating officer, appointed chief executive.
The development and production, and international sales consortia companies - Eurofighter Gmbh and Eurofighter International (EFI)- will be merged into a single entity (Flight International, 16-22 July). London-based EFI will be wound into the Munich-based Gmbh organisation. The move is in response to customer pressure to improve the programme's performance.
Eurofighter says Bagnato, who takes up the new position on 1 September, will have full autonomy to manage the company as a prime contractor, without reference to the partner companies - Alenia, BAE Systems, EADS Casa and EADS Germany - and will create a new organisational structure.
The new management will be responsible for development, production, commercial aspects, supplier management and the deployment of technical resources as well as being the interface with customers, the four partner nations and potential export countries.
As well as increasing the seniority of the head of the Eurofighter organisation, a new supervisory board has been appointed. The members are Giorgio Zappa, president Alenia Aeronautica; Steve Mogford, chief operating officer (programmes) BAE; Francisco Fernandez Sainz, president EADS Casa; and Dietrich Russell, EADS executive vice-president and head of aeronautics.
Appointing senior personnel as a supervisory board is expected to improve the responsiveness of the partner companies.
An executive board will be appointed to manage Eurofighter on a day-to-day basis. However, senior management positions will no longer be appointed by national workshare, says the company.
Eurofighter insiders say the move is a major success for managing director Bob Haslam who has been moving the organisation towards a single entity since he took over in 1999.
"Haslam has moved the company to the position where it is a proper business, he has changed the mindset from a programme organisation to a business," says one Eurofighter official.
Source: Flight International
