Case Studies

11/12/2002 - A300 to A380 - growing and working with Airbus

The Piper Group Plc first worked for Airbus (then BAE Airbus Ltd) in 1989, providing documentation support for the Airbus A300/310 program.  Since then, a lot has happened as the relationship has developed from single-project involvement to a major partnership with the €20.5 billion (annual turnover) Toulouse-based aircraft manufacturer.

Prime Supplier to BAE Airbus

During the early 1990s, the Piper Group progressively increased the scope of their authoring and illustration support across the Airbus UK projects based at Filton, Bristol.  As the company quickly met new challenges from the demanding Airbus organisation, the number of subcontract personnel deployed at the Filton site grew substantially.

The Piper Group’s commitment was rewarded when, in 1995, it was appointed as a prime supplier to BAE Airbus.  With this appointment, all Airbus technical documentation subcontract work, primarily undertaken for the Filton-based Airbus Technical Publications department across the widebody, long-range and single-aisle projects, became the responsibility of the Piper Group.

New documentation and data-management technologies

As new documentation and data management technologies played an increasingly important role in the Piper Group’s activities, so the nature of the relationship with Airbus developed to reflect this.  New technology enabled off-site authoring using Airbus systems and, as technology partnerships, software development and reselling became part of the Piper Group offer, the benefits were quickly reflected in the services offered to Airbus.

Now, the Piper Group (the UK’s largest Arbortext reseller) holds a sole Arbortext supply contract to the Airbus IT partner, Computer Science Corporation (CSC), across all UK sites.  Furthermore, the Piper Group is the UK Arbortext support centre for Airbus, with Piper-developed software applications (to AECMA and ATA standards) in daily use on Airbus UK documentation.

A Category 1 supplier

The Piper Group was recently appointed as a Category 1 Supplier to the pan-European Airbus organisation, an agreement that is already securing work on existing Airbus programs as well as future workshare on the new Airbus A380 and the Airbus A400M projects.  In less than 15 years, the Piper Group has established itself as a major partner with Airbus, providing authoring and illustration support, technology, and consultancy.

Powerful synergy on future tenders

The future undoubtedly holds the promise of more to come, with exciting new business opportunities anticipated from the recently announced strategic alliance between the Piper Group, STN ATLAS Elektronik, Infotechlog Group and Tegraf Ingenieria.  The new relationship, between four organisations that are already major Airbus documentation partners in their own countries, will enable the respective companies to achieve powerful synergy on future Airbus tenders. 

For more info on Airbus, visit www.airbus.com