Tunisian aerospace shows its mettle

While many MENA countries are looking eagerly at the prospects that aerospace can bring to employment, Tunisia is already cashing in.

For more than a decade Tunisia has been a beneficiary of inward investment by European aerospace companies, led by the French.

As the most recent colonial power to control the country, France has left a strong mark on both the language and the business scene.

In the capital, it is no real coincidence that the office for the country’s aerospace industry association – GITAS – shares its premises with the French consulate and trade office.

Wassim Srarfi, the GITAS ­ ­secretary general, said he spends a lot of time explaining that his organisation welcomes aerospace business from all over the world.

“There is a perception that, as a French-speaking country, we prefer just French investors but we treat everyone equally,” he said. “We would expect to have 40 member companies by the end of this year and that will include locally-owned Tunisian businesses and UK companies. Of course, at the moment, the majority of members are French companies.”

Srarfi said that GITAS played an important role in growing the supply chain. “In the past companies were working in an isolated way. The more they know about each other, the more synergies are found and the more the businesses can be developed.”

GITAS was created six years ago by a triumvirate of French companies led by Zodiak Aero. Now EADS, Sabena and other majors, have begun creating Tunisian subsidiaries or working with companies based in the country.

The small country of 10 million people has much in its favour. It is, after all, just 40 kilometres from Europe and barely a 90-minute flight from Paris. With a low cost-base, a highly-educated workforce, well developed transport infrastructure, duty-free access to Europe and low taxes, it proves an attractive opportunity to investors

According to Srarfi, key sectors include precision engineering, composite manufacture, surface treatment, sheet metal work, electronic, plastic and wiring engineering and the production of systems and equipment. “The number of companies has grown six-fold in the last six years and revenues have leapt from 18 million dinars to 200 million,” Srarfi said.

With 95 factories in 21 countries worldwide, the 159-year old company Hutchinson – a subsidiary of French energy giant Total – took a while to begin operations in the MENA region. However, now a new 12,000sqm facility is up and running.

“We opted for the Sousse region of Tunisia; it is the third largest city in the country with a great record in engineering and is ideal,” said Christian Froget, general manager of Hutchison’s Tunisian business.

Sitting on a 25,000sqm site, the factory was built in 2009 and opened in 2010.

With 250 employees already and plans to double staff numbers over the next two years, the company is producing a number of components and parts for big players like Airbus, Eurocopter, Snecma and Dassault.

Inside the sterile environment of the Hutchinson facility, employees are working on thermal insulation, composites, avionic trays and even clamps.

“The work is precise and the quality has to be good,” said Froget. “Our productivity levels are increasing and we will be introducing more product lines. I would say we are at about 60% of 70% of where we want to be and our costs are much lower than we had in France.”

Hutchinson, like many of the other companies that have set up in Tunisia, is there for the long game. “Training is important to us. We are certified ISO9001, EN9100 and ISO 6949. Quality is vital and we make use of Hutchinson in France to help develop our people,” said Froget. “The level of quality is good for technicians and engineers in Tunisia. People are dynamic and motivated and very proud to work for this kind of activity.”

Srarfi said there are four aerospace clusters in the country – Tunis, Suliman, Sahal (the area that includes Monastir and Sousse) and Zaghouan.

EADS-owned Aerolia is one of the newest businesses near the capital, where French company Latecoere and Italian aerostructure manufacturer Dema also have factories.

In Suliman, the largest player is Zodiac, which has been in Tunisia since 2003.

The French multinational came to Tunisia to produce air bags for the automotive industry but soon began to add aerospace products. It now produces a wide range of equipment, from oxygen masks to landing gear harnesses.

Zodiac chose NP Tunisia to make its technical plastic parts for the motor functions of its aircraft seats.

The global French company specialises in moulding by injection and compression of thermoplastics within various industries.

The NP Tunisia plant in Tunis turns over some its 35 machines 24/7 to make the plastics for Zodiac.

“We transform plastic for different business areas, such as electronic and cosmetic; a small part is aeronautical,” explained plant manager Arnaud Boulard.

“In the aeronautical field Zodiac is our biggest customer at this facility. They produce the tablet for the plane, provide us with drawings and we industrialise the tools and make the injection.”

The Tunis plant has a yearly turnover of $500,000 in aviation plastics and a group turnover of $8million.

The company, as a whole, has been dealing with aviation plastics for more than ten years and also works with Airbus, Bombardier, Snecma and General Electric, as well as making the plastics on the gate for the B787.

“The aviation market is very different for us,” said Boulard. “Producing plastics for aviation is a challenge. In other industries, when we produce the plastics the process is a lot easier. In aviation, there are certain procedures we need to go through with many changes, and obviously there are more safety checks, but this is nothing we can’t handle.

It is this development of the supply chain within Tunisia that has made a big difference.

Jean-Marc Nagel heads the TechniProtec Metal (TPM) business that sits in a small industrial estate on the outskirts of Sousse.

The business is French and sits like a customs free zone in the centre of Tunisia. “We are French and once you walk through these doors you are in France,” said Nagel. “We work with other Tunisian companies on products that are being exported to Europe. With our chemical treatment specialism we are able to treat up to 100 different pieces for seats every day for Zodiac or Hutchinson; we can produce black anodizing for Zodiac’s fuel tanks or aluminium parts for Airbus for the A380 or the A350 and we have grown from 154,000 pieces in 2007, our first year, to 1.8million last year.”

More than 50% of the TPM workforce are women. “We have found the local women to be well educated and they do a really good job. Of course, they cannot work at night. Obviously during the time of the revolution we were worried but we weren’t really affected. People were quickly back to work; we had no strikes. It is harder for companies at the moment but this is a good place to be working.”

Barely 50 metres across the street is sheet metal producer SOTIP, a family-owned business that began in Toulouse supporting manufacturers such as Airbus, ATR and Eurocopter, but since 2009 has had a base in Tunisia.

Director of the company is Frederic Camerin, who has taken the company into its new impressive factory in Sousse. “We needed more space,” he explained.

The company produces key metal parts for aircraft, such as the cockpit dashboard for the new ATR42 and 72-600; the pylons for the A320; various metal components for Zodiak for both Airbus and Boeing as well as products for Dassault, Sogerma, Thales, Astrium and Eurocopter.

Camerin believes that the Tunisian aerospace industry is ready to move on to the next stage of development and his company’s involvement in GITAS is part of that.

“Training is essential going forward. We have things we can learn from each other but it is important that the workforce is continually trained,” he said.

“We had two French companies – Recif and Aeroplast – who were like Godfathers to us. We have learned a lot and want others to do the same.

“We have a grant and an agreement in place to be training people coming into the aerospace industry on a one or two-year programme that will help them really understand the aviation culture. It is so different from making gates or cars.”

With 1,300 pieces in the company catalogue, Camerin is confident that the move to the bigger facility a year ago was the right one. “We are now manufacturing between 40 and 50,000 parts a month,” Camerin said. “We have a happy and very capable staff. Even before the revolution we were recognised as a good employer. People want to work here. We know that Airbus believes in Tunisia. The quality is good and there is real competence.”

Airbus’s parent company, EADS, has certainly backed Tunisia. Its subsidiary, Aerolia, is one of the newest names in ­aerostructures, having been spun out of Airbus as a semi-autonomous ­supplier. It opened its 10,000sqm factory just ahead of the revolution.

EADS said the business was established in Tunisia to create a local supply chain based on just-in-time ­logistics. Chief executive Christian Cornille has already set about bringing together other companies into the supply chain and working on the same site.

Srarfi sees the creation of the supply chain at the heart of what GITAS is doing. The Tunisian government is keen to encourage more small producers to set up in the country alongside their customers, while at the same time encouraging larger companies to set up with the comfort of knowing there is a healthy base of local manufacturers to meet the just-in-time requirements of supply.

“There are benefits for Tunisia,” said Srarfi. “We are a young industry here, but we are one with rapid growth. We are working on education and we are working with universities and schools of engineering.

This means we have a knowledge-based career opportunity here. Lots of Tunisians work in Europe in the aerospace industry. By creating opportunities we create wealth for the country.

“Our geographic advantage is that we have good sea ports and can ship products to Marseilles in a day; we can be in Rome in an hour by air and in Toulouse in 90 minutes. We have proved to be efficient and we are open to all to be here. Tunisia is an important part now of the supply chain.”