George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, was in Bristol on Friday 27 April for the official opening of GKN Aerospace’s new composite wing structures manufacturing and assembly facility.

The £170m facility, which Kier Construction helped to create, aims to take a significant percentage of the future global wing structures market and represents an international centre of excellence in composite wing structure, design and production.

Kier was responsible for the design & build adaptation and fitting out of the two buildings at the new ‘Western Approach’ site. This involved driving an additional 1,000 cast in situ concrete piles to provide suitable foundation bases for the ultra sensitive manufacturing assemblies. Kier also created two clean spaces, one of which was 4,000sq m and 15m high, storage facilities, offices and amenities. It supervised the construction of the crane gantries, which access the entire floor area, and installed new services to the value of £5m.

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The site, which has over 30,000sq m of floor space, contains a state-of-the-art composites manufacturing operation that incorporates the latest automated high precision production technologies in one building. There is also an innovative and 'moving line' assembly operation that uses guided vehicles to move the wing structures through a series of semi-robotic work stations in the other.

Work packages for the A350 XWB passenger airline and the A400M military transporter are already being carried out at the new facility. For the A350 XWB, the Western Approach operation is manufacturing the all-composite rear wing spars and assembling the wing trailing edge and main landing gear parts to each spar to create a complete 27m-long wing assembly. For the A400M aircraft, the operation is manufacturing the all-composite main wing spar – a 20m-long assembly that is the first primary wing structure for a large aircraft created entirely in carbon composite materials.

Kier Construction executive director, Peter Young, said: "It is great news that this manufacturing facility, at the forefront of technology, is based here in Avonmouth. For Kier, working with GKN Aerospace has a very been positive experience. It has allowed us to reinforce our presence in this sector and we have recently completed the new National Composites Centre at the Science Park in Emerson's Green. The region has become the leading composites manufacturing and research centre in the world and I am very pleased that Kier has had a part to play in its success."

(CD/GK)