Dassault Falcon (Booth 3634) continues to bolster its support and services capabilities, opening new paint facilities at its world completions center in Little Rock, Ark., and at Wilmington, Del., and enhancing its worldwide spares delivery system.
All Falcon aircraft are built in France and flown 'green' to Little Rock for completion. The new 46,000-square-foot paint center there, for which ground was broken in mid-2003, can accommodate three aircraft at the same time. It cost some $8 million. The investment, says Dassault Falcon president and CEO John Rosanvallon, "is in keeping with the new process innovations coming with our new-generation Falcon 7X."
In July Dassault Falcon opened a 40,000-square-foot sister facility in Wilmington, culminating a multi-year investment of some $30 million in the overall Delaware service center.
Both of the new paint units are described as EPA Title V-approved facilities specializing in high-solids and conventional aircraft coatings, with sophisticated filtering and air circulation, and glare-free lighting, to help ensure optimum results.
Painting activities at Little Rock, Rosanvallon says, are tied primarily to completions, while Wilmington supports the aftermarket.
Also supporting the aftermarket is continued improvement of Dassault's Falcon Spares service, the company says, "by improving long-term planning, adding inventory, reviewing specific service level failures, and working more closely with our major suppliers." Some prices have been lowered too, and Dassault plans to institute a "Spares Cares" satisfaction report feature on its website whereby customers can lodge compliments—or compliments—with the promise that the company will review and act on the customer input weekly.
