Dassault Aviation officially launched Tuesday the construction of an office building on its site in Mérignac, France, as a step of its “Leading our Future” transformation plan. The building will accommodate design, development and after-sales support teams for the firm's civil and defense activities.
“This ambitious project reflects our aim to bring together some of the teams who design and support our aircraft and those responsible for producing them. It fosters collaborative working as part of the rollout of our extended design office concept. The principle is to integrate even more and whenever required, from the design phase, all the trades involved in the product life cycle,” said Eric Trappier, Chairman and CEO of Dassault Aviation.
“This building will not just house offices but will be one of the means to reframe the interactions between Mérignac and Saint-Cloud. We are expecting better links between technical competence, product knowledge and customer services,” he noted.
“It is one of the focuses of our transformation plan which, without altering the DNA that has underpinned our century-long success, aims to make our company more flexible and more competitive to respond to the technology challenges ahead and the changes occurring in the world around us,” Trappier added.
The new building will offer 25,800 sq. m of surface area over four levels with a total capacity of 1,500 workstations including 24 modular collaborative work spaces and nine project offices. The building will also provide VIP rooms for our civil and military customers, a Falcon command center, rooms for aircraft system test benches, a Virtual Reality Center, an Immersive Reality Center and an auditorium.
The highest environmental standards will be applied including smart lighting and energy management, solar panels (4,000 sq. m), reinforced insulation, green roofs, and a heat recovery system.
Presided over by Eric Trappier, alongside Valérie Guillemet, Mérignac Site Manager, the “groundbreaking” ceremony was attended by many local elected representatives, particularly the President of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region Alain Rousset, the President of Bordeaux Métropole Patrick Bobet, the Mayor of Mérignac Alain Anziani and the Mayor of Bordeaux Nicolas Florian. Representatives of official services, as well as the region's aviation ecosystem and the media were also present at the event.
Work is scheduled for completion at the end of 2020, and the building should be commissioned in 2021.
With over 10,000 military and civil aircraft 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 and military drones.
In 2018, Dassault Aviation reported revenues of €5.1 billion. The company has 11,500 employees.
