The complexity of the Korean Helicopter Program (KHP) has less to do with its technical aspects as with the running of the program itself. This type of cooperation is a whole new ball game for Eurocopter.

Eurocopter and the South Korean industry are working together on the KHP program – a program with several layers of complexity. The most obvious obstacle that cannot be avoided is the time difference: when it is ten in the morning in Europe, it is already six in the evening in Seoul. But beyond this concern, the complexity of the Franco-Korean program mainly centers on cultural matters. Program director Hubert Mantel explains: “In the same way that the Koreans had to get used to our way of working, we also needed to understand them and how they do things. We gave our teams special training so they could better grasp the type of decision-making processes they would have to face. Koreans are very keen on planning, and meeting fixed objectives is absolutely vital to them. Faced with an insurmountable obstacle, they will wait until the last moment to change course, which allows the Koreans to set very ambitious goals and, what’s more, to achieve them!” It is precisely these ambitious goals that explain why EADS and Eurocopter have set up shop in Korea. This prosperous country has proven in the past its capacity to expand very quickly into numerous sectors.

The Challenges
The KHP program is tasked with developing the Korean Utility Helicopter (KUH), a medium-sized transportation helicopter with development potential as a naval helicopter. The Eurocopter teams are providing technical assistance to KAI and are also manufacturing parts. “We have a contract to develop sub-assemblies such as the autopilot, the MGB and the rotor mast,” Hubert Mantel continues. “We are pulling out all the stops to honor this contract and respect the imposed lead times and specifications. Our work is carefully defined by an industrial agreement: Eurocopter is only a subcontractor, here to provide technical support. This is a whole new ball game for us.” The support work is provided by a team of French and German engineers and technicians based at Eurocopter’s subsidiary in South Korea. “We have to channel the work of KAI and let them know when they go off track. However, we are limited due to the fact that we are the subcontractor,” says Hubert Mantel. To sum up, the main difficulty of the cooperation program with KAI is not so much the technical problems as the running of the KUH program itself. “We must continuously monitor program developments and adapt accordingly,” Hubert Mantel explains. “This requires excellent monitoring tools and a closely-knit team of people from nearly all the Eurocopter trades.”

New Risks
The KHP program has therefore thrown up new risks of an entirely different nature for Eurocopter. The Group must of course deliver on-time and insure technical excellence, but Eurocopter also has to determine a new way of cooperating as part of a subcontracting contract like this. “We also have to build relationships based on trust with our Korean colleagues so that we can lay the groundwork for future cooperation programs,” Hubert Mantel concludes. Eurocopter is in South Korea for the long haul, and the Group’s presence is being closely observed by U.S. rivals who are already wellestablished in the country. Eurocopter’s success in South Korea obviously does not bode well for them.