Dassault Aviation inaugurated Friday he extension of its Seclin plant (Nord Département, France). These additional 13,000 m2 house ultra-modern equipment enabling the teams of engineers, technicians and workers to carry out the new tasks entrusted to the plant under the company’s transformation plan.
Seclin is the Dassault Aviation plant furthest upstream in the industrial cycle and is responsible for manufacturing machined and formed aluminum and titanium primary parts for the Company’s civil and military aircraft. The extension works lasted from early 2018 to mid-2019. They were followed by the equipment installation phase. The new workshops are devoted to surface treatment and sheet metal work previously carried out at Argenteuil. The total surface area of the Seclin site now stands at 50,000 m2.
The work has also helped to improve the plant’s environmental footprint, particularly by the replacement of chemical machining with a unique “12-axis” machining process, the only one of its kind in the world. Several industrial facilities have also been equipped with energy recovery systems.
“For 50 years now, our Seclin plant has succeeded in reconciling man and machine, the most traditional working practices and the most advanced robots, the most noble metallurgy trades and the most innovative processes in aeronautics,” said Eric Trappier, Chairman and CEO of Dassault Aviation.
“In line with this tradition, the large-scale investments in recent years have led to a significant rise in manpower: we had 300 employees in 2018, and now have nearly 600, including subcontractors on-site. The eventual target is a total of 700 staff in 2025. The skills and industrial resources brought together here are among the best in Europe, even the world”, he added.
Eric Trappier presided over the inauguration ceremony alongside plant director Emmanuel Maygnan, in the presence of the Secretary General of the Nord prefecture, Fabienne Decottignies, the Senator for the Nord département Frédéric Marchand, the President of the Hauts-de-France region Xavier Bertrand, the President of Métropole Européenne de Lille Damien Castelain, as well as delegations from the municipalities of Seclin, Templemars and Noyelles-les-Seclin. Representatives of the regional ecosystem, including the Director of UIMM (union of metallurgical industries and trades) for the Nord département, Olivier Durteste, also attended the event.
With over 10,000 military and civil aircraft (including 2,500 Falcons) delivered in more than 90 countries over the last century, Dassault Aviation has built up expertise recognized worldwide in the design, development, sale and support of all types of aircraft, ranging from the Rafale fighter, to the high-end Falcon family of business jets, military drones and space systems.
In 2021, Dassault Aviation reported revenues of €7.2 billion. The company has 12,400 employees.
