© Reuters/Stephane MaheAirbus logo at the entrance of the Airbus facility in Bouguenais
PARIS (Reuters) - Airbus has launched the biggest shake-up of its manufacturing network in more than a decade, with large parts activities reorganized in France and Germany and some small parts activities to be placed under review.
The European planemaker said on Wednesday it would combine aerostructure assembly in France under one entity, bringing major fuselage parts plants in St Nazaire and Nantes together with the worldwide operations of its Stelia affiliate.
In Germany, the Premium Aerotec business will be split, with part of it combined with manufacturing plants in Stade and some of the large Hamburg factory, and the rest folded into a new business specialising in small mass-produced "detail" parts.
"We are in the process of reviewing different ownership structures to identify the best possible solution," a spokesman said, referring to the new Germany-based detail-parts spin-off.
Those parts can range from small generic items like metal brackets costing a few dollars to complex machined items costing tens of thousands, such as those made in the highly automated Varel plant in Germany.
Also included in the new entity are part of the Augsburg plant in Germany and the Brasov facility in Romania.
Discussions continue on operations in Spain.
The shake-up comes two months after Chief Executive Guillaume Faury declared aerostructures, which includes the manufacturing of fuselage parts, to be "core".
Once considered the less valuable end of the aerospace spectrum, aerostructures are now increasingly considered vital to the aerodynamically complex shape of future designs.
The new move draws a line under past efforts to sell the whole of Stelia and PremiumAerotec, which had been carved out in 2009. Industry sources have said few buyers came forward.
(Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by David Evans and Aurora Ellis)