Avic Engine Unit Seeks Western Workers
BEIJING — China is dramatically stepping up its efforts to procure Western know-how, with Avic’s commercial engine company, ACAE, launching a large-scale recruitment campaign in Britain and the U.S. to back its development of a narrowbody airliner turbofan.
The drive to enlist foreign staff, in part focusing on experienced workers, is another manifestation of Chinese industry’s ability to wield national resources and the lure of market access in its quest for the knowledge it needs to rapidly catch up with Western aerospace leaders.
The effort also has clear military implications, since engines for commercial aircraft share many technology features with those of combat aircraft. And many military aircraft use commercial powerplants with only slight modifications.
Avic has previously recruited Western managers, but on a small scale. The latest effort by just one of its subsidiaries, ACAE, is clearly much larger.
ACAE says it is immediately targeting mature workers from British industry and graduates from key British universities. The next step is to recruit in the U.S. before the end of June.
The company expects that 40% of its recruits this year will come from abroad, as it works on increasing its design and development team to 500 from 300 by the end of the year. That team, presumably focused on building the proposed C919 turbofan, will by 2020 have about 5,000 people. They will be engaged in general management, project management, design and development, installation, testing, maintenance and marketing, the company says in a statement carried by official media.
Of the various aspects of commercial aircraft development, propulsion presents probably the highest barriers to entry, with countless points of technical difficulty from the inlet to the exhaust nozzle of every engine. Moreover, Western manufacturers guard their know-how, accumulated over 70 years of jet turbine development, at least as jealously as any airframe company guards its technology. ACAE therefore faces as great a challenge as any of Avic’s subsidiaries in getting into the top rank of global suppliers.
Its answer, apparently, is to buy expertise. By choosing Britain and the U.S. for recruitment, the company is clearly targeting Rolls-Royce, General Electric, Pratt Whitney and their local suppliers. English language is probably also a factor, since few Chinese engineers speak German, French, Italian or Japanese.
The initial recruitment event was held in London on March 23. It was the first time any part of Avic had gone outside of China to recruit, the Xinhua news agency says in a report that can be presumed to have been sourced entirely from ACAE.
ACAE’s full name is Avic Commercial Aircraft Engine Co. It has also used the English name Avic Engine.
Photo: Chinese Internet
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