Story ID: 373
Dassault Opens New Facility in Mérignac
By: Kerry Lynch
Caption: The new facility will enable Dassault to consolidate certain activities in Mérignac, closer to aircraft production.
Word Count: 272
Dassault Aviation recently expanded its facilities in Bordeaux-Mérignac with the inauguration of a new 26,000-sq-m (280,000-sq-ft) plant that will house design, development, and after-sales support teams for both the French manufacturer’s civil and defense businesses.

Dedication of the new building on September 21 came a little more than two years after the construction began in May 2019. The facility houses 1,650 workstations, 24 modular collaborative workspaces, and nine project offices. In addition, it includes a Falcon Command Center, aircraft system test bench rooms, and a 268-seat auditorium.

Built to the latest and most stringent environmental standards, the building incorporates smart lighting and energy management, solar panels, green roofs, heat recovery system, and power distribution integrated into the floor. Dassault also planted 500 trees on the site.

According to the OEM, the new facility is designed to foster collaboration and enhanced development activities as it consolidates more activities near its production operations in Mérignac, which is in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of France.

“Widespread use of digital tools must be supported by the development of a more deep-rooted, concrete aircraft culture,” Dassault Aviation chairman and CEO Eric Trappier said. “This shared culture will allow us to effectively integrate, from the design stage onwards, all the business units involved in the product life cycle: industrialization, procurements, manufacturing, and support.”

As part of the consolidation, the new building along with existing facilities will accomodate the defense customer support, Falcon aircraft services, industrial operations, procurement, and design office teams. The design office, which Trappier described as "the center of gravity,” will remain in Saint- Cloud.
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