Products, Technology and New Alliances
Among Major Keys for Resurgent Agusta

Agusta has targeted a 10% increase in sales this year and, despite this ambitious goal, sees 1999 as "a transitional year towards 2000," when new aircraft and fast-maturing partnerships take the company to a new level entirely.

"Agusta's target is to become one of the three largest helicopter manufacturers in the world," Agusta deputy general marketing and sales manager Giuseppe Orsi said here Sunday morning. He's forecasting an increase in market share driven by new products and technology, international alliances and a true customer focus.
Standout aircraft offerings include Agusta's A109 twin in its Power and K2 variants (with a fully integrated military version), the new A119 Koala (billed as the world's fastest single, with 30% more cabin space than any other), the NH90 for NATO, the big three-engine EH101 offered with GKN Westland, and the new AB 139 twin and BA 609 tiltrotor, both being developed by the Bell/Agusta Aerospace Company, which was incorporated just this past November.
Partners on the AB 139 include Pratt & Whitney for PT6T engines (in commonality with the BA 609 tiltrotor), Honeywell for a Primus avionics suite, AlliedSignal for an integrated electric power generation and distribution system, Britain's Westland and Japan's Kawasaki for transmission components and Poland's PZL for airframe parts.

The AB 139 is the first helicopter ever to be offered by Bell that was not initiated by Bell, Orsi said. The Agusta-Bell collaboration began some 45 years ago with Agusta as a Bell aircraft licensee, but became a true marriage only recently, when Boeing dropped out of the Model 609 project and Bell sought a new tiltrotor partner. That, said Orsi, "made the situation ideal." Agusta now holds 25% of the BA 609 program.

Agusta's technology advantages include "supremacy in transmission design," Orsi said, and a leadership position in systems integration. The company assigns about 15% of its people to R&D tasks, up from just 10% percent a few years back.

Internationally, Agusta will pick and choose its partners as business conditions warrant, Orsi said. "It is our view that collaboration with other manufacturers should be based on business opportunity, not on geopolitical decisions," he said. So while intra-European alliances (such as a merger with Westland) remain possible, so does increased cooperation with manufacturers in North America.

As for customer focus, Orsi maintains that while everyone talks it, Agusta lives it. All engineers are made to understand that their job is not to satisfy their supervisor or even the regulatory agencies, but to make sure that each and every one of their designs satisfies the customer, he said, in terms of both functionality and cost.

By Rich Piellisch