POWER8: THE COST OF REPAIRING THE INDUSTRIAL SYSTEM
Power8, announced in February 2007, was a restructuring programme with consequences for people as well as accounting. Airbus linked it to dollar weakness, competition, A380 delays and the need to finance future programmes. The plan proposed reducing 10,000 overhead positions over four years, including temporary and on-site subcontractor roles. Airbus said it initially sought voluntary measures for its direct employees. A history of the company should retain those qualifications instead of turning the figure into an unexplained headline about immediate redundancies. [212, Announcement; Reduction of Airbus Overhead Costs]
The organisational ambition was equally important. Transnational centres of excellence were to replace nationally structured units, alongside changes in purchasing, manufacturing and the supplier network. Airbus was trying to make one integrated industrial enterprise out of a successful but complicated collaboration. The measures show why the company story cannot be reduced to a sequence of aircraft launches: growth also required difficult decisions about who designed, built and paid for each part. [212]