Dassault Aviation and India's Tata Technologies have signed an agreement for Tata to provide Dassault with engineering services in support of the Indian Air Force's Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft (MMRCA) program.

The MMRCA program has 50 percent offset requirements. Dassault is one of the six bidders for the 126-aircraft program, thought to be valued at over $10 billion. Flight trials are expected to start in May 2009.

Tata is the parent company of INCAT. The services will be delivered mostly from the recently established joint venture INCAT HAL Aerostructures Limited (IHAL) and its dedicated aerospace engineering services center in Bangalore, backed up by INCAT's delivery teams in France and the U.S.

The joint venture will be the Preferred Delivery Center for both organizations. Both HAL and Tata Technologies will contribute 50 percent to INCAT HAL.

"The global aerospace industry is realizing the value of adopting an outsourcing-based business model, not simply to achieve cost reductions, but to speed time to market while maintaining quality," INCAT CEO Warren Harris said earlier this year.

M. Fakruddin, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited's director of corporate planning and marketing, said "the objective of this joint venture is to undertake work packages related to engineering design services in aerostructures, and also the captive offshore and on-site work load of both partners from aerospace OEMs, including offset programs."

Founded in 1989, INCAT is a Tata Technologies company providing services in product lifecycle management, enterprise resource management and application development and maintenance. The company is headquartered in Novi, Michigan, Pune and Stuttgart.

Image: Dassault