Originally Published 31 March 2000

Twenty of Europe's leading aerospace organisations are to meet at the University of Warwick on 6th and 7th April 2000 in the latest phase of a 38 million ECU project to cut 30% of the cost and time it takes to develop new aircraft.

The three year ENHANCE project receives half its funding from the European Commission. The University of Warwick is hosting the conference as one of the partners in the project. Other partners include: Aerospatiale Matra Airbus, Alenia, BAE SYSTEMS, CASA, DaimlerChrysler Aerospace Airbus, Dassault Aviation, Eurocopter, Rolls-Royce, Saab, Air France, DERA, SNECMA). 11 European countries are represented.

The ENHANCE consortium has been built around the major players of all the aeronautic sectors (builders of air-frames of both large and small aircraft, engines, equipment, helicopters, SME suppliers and airlines) and research centres.

Europe's aerospace sector has an annual turnover of approximately 35 billion ECU and export of aircraft and aeronautical products is a key item in the balance of trade of the main countries in the European Union. To maintain and develop this sector with its 330,000 highly qualified jobs spread over nearly 80,000 companies, the ENHANCE project will help radically reorganize working methods (design, development, production, maintenance, services to airlines) drawing particularly on concurrent engineering techniques with these aims:

• reduce the Aircraft Development Time Scale by 30%,
• reduce the development costs by 30%,
• reduce costs associated with interpretation, translation and regeneration of transmitted data by 20%,
• establish a strong European presence and influence in the generation and adoption of global standards

The results of the ENHANCE project will be applied to the next civil transport aircraft programmes such as A3XX, AE31X, Tilt-Rotor, Falcon, etc

Notes for Editors:

• Press are welcome to attend any part of the conference
  

For further details please contact:

Bob Moore, University of Warwick
Tel: 024 76 524356
email: MOORE_B@wmgmail.wmg.warwick.ac.uk