Workers in American Eurocopter's plant in Columbus, Miss., build lightweight utility helicopters for the U.S. Army. (George Altman, Capital Bureau)COLUMBUS, Mississippi — Less than a decade ago, EADS subsidiary American Eurocopter broke ground on a $100 million helicopter plant in the middle of a dove-hunting field here.
The plant has since grown to 335 employees from 33. Once relegated to assembling helicopters built in Europe then disassembled for shipping overseas, it now manufactures them from the ground up — and much more efficiently than its European counterparts.
The facility will serve as a model for the $600 million airplane assembly plant to be built in Mobile starting next year by Airbus, another EADS subsidiary, according to Fred Gerard, the Mississippi plant’s senior director of lightweight utility helicopter production.
Project leaders have been visiting the small east Mississippi city, and are scheduled to do so again next month, for tips on starting operations in Mobile, he said.
"I can tell you that we are working diligently and very close with the Mobile team, with the Airbus team," Gerard said. "They are going to do something very comparable with what we have been doing."
American Eurocopter builds several types of helicopters in Mississippi, for military, law-enforcement, civilian and other customers. Every year, it delivers about 80 altogether, 50 of them for the U.S. Army, according to Human Resources Manager Robert Boman.
It takes about four months for workers to build a helicopter from start to finish, Boman said.
The 330,000-square-foot plant, situated about 16 miles east of Starkville, is modern and high-tech, with a system that sends real-time data to managers for each step of the production process. The place is meticulously clean and tidy.
"We have a rule here: You clean as you go," Boman said. "If one little piece of wire clipping or a bolt or a screw were to fall into your engine, that would foul up your engine. Your engine’s $250,000."
A mid-level worker at the plant earns $42,000 per year, according to Boman, and receives benefits that include a 401(k) with a company match, goal-based pay bonuses, health insurance with dental coverage, two weeks of leave for a new employee, sick days and 13 paid holidays.
"We are a U.S. company with a European social touch, and that’s how we treat our employees as well," Gerard said. "We want to treat our employee as family."
Military veterans comprise nearly 40 percent of the Eurocopter family in Mississippi, according to Boman. Seven in 10 workers are local to the area.
Airbus’ initial hires may not have such strong local representation, however.
"You need your skilled labor first to become your future trainer," Gerard said. "You are going to have to find them all through the United States."
He said that those senior technicians and support staff would be sent to Europe to master the skills and processes that they will eventually teach to the work force. When they return and hiring ramps up, the plant can emphasize hiring local people, even those with little or no experience with sheet metal work or avionics, the electrical systems that run aircraft.
"Those local people are the ones probably the most motivated to get a job and to stay," Gerard said.
Norris Harris of Columbus had worked in residential vehicle manufacturing for more than two decades but knew nothing about building aircraft when he started with Eurocopter 3½ years ago. He is now a senior technician and one of the plant’s best workers, Boman said.
"This was something totally new to me," Harris said. "Just the idea that you’re building a helicopter for the Army ... you don’t get any better than that. You know, something that’s going to get up in the air and fly."
The company strives to maintain a low rate of turnover, Boman said. Replacing a single worker requires the company to spend thousands of dollars on training.
As a result, it makes good business sense for Eurocopter to keep workers content, he said, such as through competitive pay and benefits, organized company leisure activities and support for families, even helping spouses find jobs.
Joy Depena, whose husband moved to Columbus for Eurocopter and works on the factory floor, located a job nearby — in the company’s avionics department. The Depenas may become even more of a Eurocopter family in the future, she said.
"We’ve got three kids. Maybe we can get them all on here," Depena said with a laugh.
Eurocopter also expects its workers to be highly productive, and has tools to tell it exactly how productive each one is on the factory floor.
Workers alert the plant’s computer system as they begin and end each step of the manufacturing process, according to Gerard. "I have real data, every day, about the status of everything," he said.
The plant is now 22 to 25 percent more efficient than its predecessor in Germany.
Gerard noted that German unions would prohibit such a time-tracking system.
U.S. unions far from Columbus might also object to some of the Mississippi plant’s methods, but workers who spoke with the Press-Register during a brief tour said they were very happy with their jobs.
Blaine Adair drives 100 miles round-trip each day from his home in Sulligent, Ala., to work on avionics for Eurocopter.
Asked what he would tell people in the Mobile area who might be thinking of applying with Airbus, Adair did not hesitate: "Definitely try it out. EADS is a great company. You’re not going to be disappointed."