General Convention on Aerospace industry

In order to prepare the next General Convention on Aerospace Industry, TOMPASSE leads a working group called "New Technologies"

Under the authority of André BENHAMOU, President of TOMPASSE, this working group brings together representatives from Aeroconseil, Aerospace Valley, Alstom, Ariège Expansion, the CCIT (Toulouse chamber of commerce), Continental Automotive, DIRECCTE, Liebherr Aerospace, Midi-Pyrénées Innovation, SAFRAN and UIMM (Federation of employer’s association with labor competency serving industrial companies).

Several statements could be identified after the first meetings took place :

• Specialization of OEM’s sites structures the local "supply chain".
• The number of Local subcontractors reduces because aircraft manufacturers work with rank 1 companies.
• Midi Pyrenees area has a network of hard metals, machining, sheet metal manufacture and electricity.
• Only few SMEs manufacture their own products.
• As far as new technologies are concerned, the time scale is different between SMEs and big industrial groups.
• On major R & T programs (CORAC, Clean Sky…) there is too much distance between SMEs know-how and these large projects.

Several avenues worth exploring could be identified and further explored. This working group plans to have other meeting in order to prepare the next steering committee in June.