Cessna Aircraft Co. is reorganizing its workflow, taking some work back from subcontractors and sending other tasks to suppliers in Wichita and Mexico.
Cessna spokesman Doug Oliver said it is part of his company’s cost-reduction, productivity, and quality improvement efforts. The work includes large airframe structure assemblies.
“Cessna will begin to move Citation structural assembly work from Avcorp to other suppliers in Wichita and Mexico and its own facility in Independence, Kansas, as part of the company’s ongoing cost-reduction, productivity, and quality improvement efforts,” Oliver said in an e-mail to AOPA Pilot.
“Cessna will place Sovereign wing spar production with a supplier in Wichita and CJ3 wing box work at the Cessna facility in Independence, a positive development for the Kansas aerospace community. Empennage structural assembly for the Sovereign, CJ3, and CJ4 will go to a new strategic supplier in Mexico. The outside suppliers are not yet being named. Full transition is expected to be complete by 2012. Cessna is not releasing details on contract value or employment impact at this time.”
Avcorp is a Canadian airframe subassembly manufacturer that will lose work under the new agreement. Avcorp will continue to fulfill orders until the transition. No date has been set. The actual time the work is transitioned was addressed in a statement released by Avcorp: “A production transition plan, as well as a remuneration agreement is subject of discussion. The transition timeline is anticipated to be over an extended period of time and is contingent on factors which will be the subject matter of the ongoing discussions with Cessna.”
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