Pioneers of a new frontier

James Careless discovers how Airbus has gone about training its US A220 assemblers at its Mirabel, Canada plant to ramp up production.

In August 2019, Airbus officially started building the A220 passenger aircraft (previously known as the Bombardier C Series) in its US manufacturing plant on Mobile, Alabama.

Considering that the main A220 production hangar and new support buildings were only constructed this year (the plant is also sharing some buildings used to build A320, as well as some newly-built hangars built for new A220 production and A320 expansion), this is an impressive feat – and one that would not be possible without Mobile’s ‘A220 Pioneers’.

The Pioneers are employees from the Airbus Mobile plant, who have been selected to acquire hands-on A220 manufacturing skills at the company’s original A220 plant in Mirabel, Quebec. Since April 2019, about 60 Pioneers have made the trip to Mirabel; spending three months engaged in ‘on the job’ training here with the help of Mirabel aircraft assemblers. When these Pioneers return home, their ‘expat’ (as the company calls them) Mirabel trainers travel down to the US to assist the Pioneers on the Mobile production line. About 80 Mirabel expats have travelled with their families to Mobile so far, with their stays scheduled to last 12-24 months.

“Mirabel's already been building the A220 for a few years now, so they've already got their manufacturing processes well developed,” begins Matthew Walker, an Airbus A220 operations leader at the Mobile plant. “Meanwhile, we have really good, skilled mechanics in Mobile, but they don't know how to build this aircraft. So, what better way than to send them up here to learn directly from the experts themselves who will then come back to Mobile for a year and make sure that we're successful in our start-up phase?”

In doing this, Airbus is working towards assembling four A220s each month in Mobile for the US market, and 10 A220s a month in Mirabel for the rest of the world. Airbus decided to open the Mobile A220 production facility to keep up with the US demand for the A220.

Duplicate assembly lines

To maximise the advantages of its Pioneer training system, Airbus is using the exact same multi-station production system in both locations.

“Everything in Mobile is a complete mirror of what’s being used in Mirabel,” states Walker. The only difference is that Mirabel has two A220 assembly lines running in parallel, whereas Mobile has one.

LCS01 is the first station for A220 assembly, where fuselage sections are joined by technicians to create the entire aircraft. LCS02 is where the wings, stabilisers and undercarriage are bolted on, with doors, fuel systems and other components being added at LCS03. Under-aircraft attachments and interior fittings are installed at LCSD10/20; with engines, avionics, and seats coming in at LCS30/40.

“From here, the A220 goes to the LCS60 paint shop, and then to LCS70 for pre-flight inspections and testing,” says Michael Gendron, one of Airbus Mirabel’s pre-flight quality lead-hands. “After that the aircraft is ready to fly at the LCS80. Normally the aircraft needs about two flights to get all the necessary flight tests done.” Having passed these tests, the A220 receives any final customer-selected modifications, and is then ready for delivery.

The training experience

For Dusty Albritten, a Mobile LCS mechanic with A320 experience, getting trained in Mirabel started with “how to look up the right A220 paperwork to find the proper procedures. My expat is with me, and he's training me on all this,” he says.

Next comes classroom time on A220 assembly techniques, followed by hands-on training - led by Allbritten’s expat - on the Mirabel LCS03 station. Working together, Albritten and his expat build A220s on the line; while also building Allbritten’s skills and his ability to pass them onto other Mobile workers in the future.

In practical terms, Dusty Allbritten and the other Pioneers serve as apprentices to their Mirabel expat trainers; albeit apprentices with a wealth of pre-existing aircraft assembly skills and experience.

“I don’t have a problem with being an unofficial apprentice in Mirabel,” Allbritten explains. “That's the way I look at the training process. It doesn't matter how insignificant it is - show me everything the way you do it. Go ahead and treat me like an apprentice. This way, I know I'm getting taught properly.”

This said, there is only so much any Pioneer can learn in three months’ time in Mirabel, which is why the expats follow these technicians back to Mobile when their Canadian training is done.

“In no way will I be an expert when I finish up here,” comments Albritten. “That’s the reason you get the expat to come back with you.”

Challenges and rewards

Mixing the Deep South culture of Mobile, Alabama with the Quebecois (French-Canadian) culture of Mirabel, Quebec is quite a combination. The technicians from these respective regions come from very different worlds; right down to the weather. On average, Mirabel gets 89.1 inches of snow each winter, which is a big part of Quebecois life. In contrast, Mobile doesn’t get snow at all.

This said, the Airbus culture shared by the Pioneers and their expats trainers helps to bridge their differences; as does their professionalism and passion for building cutting-edge A220s. The only real day-to-day challenge is language: The Pioneers are native English speakers, while the majority of the Mirabel expats are French speakers with English as their second language.

Add the accents associated with the Deep South and Quebec, and the biggest challenge for Mirabel LCS03 assembler Marc-Antoine Brisebois is, “do my students understand me properly?” Fortunately, the shared lexicon of A220 assembly techniques helps to smooth things over; as do hand gestures and computer-based aids.

“To be honest, there is no really big challenge to work with these Mobile guys,” Gendron concludes. “They are always with us, and they see what we do.”

Currently, Airbus plans to have four ‘waves’ of Pioneers train in Mirabel in 2019. More waves will be trained in 2020 and beyond, as needs dictate.

Meanwhile, the initial Pioneers are back at work in Mobile. Aided by their Mirabel expats, these Pioneers are making Airbus’ second A220 assembly line as efficient and consistent as its first.

www.airbus.com