AgustaWestland - Soaring to new heights in Greater Kuala Lumpur

AgustaWestland is a leader in a number of the world’s most important helicopter markets, offering a wide range of advanced rotorcraft for both commercial and military use

24 February 2014 - Having established a presence in Kuala Lumpur for over a decade, Anglo-Italian helicopter company AgustaWestland has become an enabler for all other businesses in Malaysia “to grow up and out”.

“Our customers aren’t consumers. We support other businesses in doing their business, the oil and gas sector being our single largest industry customer,” says Vincenzo Alaimo, AgustaWestland’s head of region, Southeast Asia.

“The role of AgustaWestland Malaysia Sdn Bhd is to be close to our existing customers, develop new customers and grow with their businesses.”
As a capability provider in the vertical lift market, AgustaWestland is a leader in a number of the world’s most important helicopter markets, offering a wide range of advanced rotorcraft for both commercial and military use. The company boasts high expertise in rotorcraft systems design, development, production and integration. It also has experience in the training business and customer-focused integrated operational support solutions.

AgustaWestland has to position itself strategically in Asia-Pacific, he says. “Malaysia was our natural choice in creating a regional hub for Asia-Pacific because of its strategic location, the availability of skilled manpower and its business-friendly environment.

" Malaysia, in general, has a industry-friendly ecosystem. The talent base is also good, with wide usage of English, solid logistics and infrastructure, and a familiar banking and financial system. In considering that a company comprises people who need to live happily in order to work happily, Kuala Lumpur provides all of that. "

AgustaWestland first set foot in Kuala Lumpur when it set up its regional office in 2001. Located in Menara IMC, the office serves as coordination centre for all sales and marketing and customer support activities in the region.

“Malaysia has always been our biggest market in the region. We’ve been supporting the government since the 1990s for various helicopters operated by the Royal Malaysian Air Force, the Royal Malaysian Navy and the army,” he says. “At the same time, we also have helicopters owned and operated by individuals and corporations.”

Then, the company started the operations of its maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) and regional spares distribution centre (RSDC) in 2008 at the Sultan Abdul Aziz Shah Airport in Subang, Selangor. This was a challenging process as it involved establishing the company’s premises, recruiting and training staff, setting up a quality system and obtaining certification from the aviation authorities.

Alaimo: Malaysia was our natural choice in creating a regional hub for Asia-Pacific because of its strategic location, the availability of skilled manpower and its business-friendly environment

" Our customers aren’t consumers. We support other businesses in doing their business, the oil and gas sector being our single largest industry customer. "

“Maintenance, repair and overhaul are the three main activities we perform for our customers,” Alaimo says. “Some customers leave everything to us while others do their own operations-level maintenance and send the unserviceable components to us for repair. Major components, such as the engine, gearboxes and airframe, also require overhaul at fixed intervals, regardless of their condition.”

AgustaWestland invested about RM50 million in the MRO and RSDC over the last three years. Human capital is its biggest investment because of its very specific needs.

“The initial investment was for the setting up and qualification as an authorised service centre. This entails tools and equipment and training of staff for specific functions,” he explains. “A few of our senior technical staff joined us with adequate qualification obtained by themselves when with previous employers, but the rest are locals who we sent for training in Italy to be appropriately qualified. We also had to stock up on components and spares as we serve as an RSDC for AgustaWestland customers in the region.”

Currently, the company has a team of 50 in Kuala Lumpur, but they support a large portion of AgustaWestland’s critical operations in many countries, from Bangladesh to Japan and New Zealand. Alaimo expects the workforce to increase by 50% within the next two years.

“Our expansion in the near future will see further investments, for example, RM25 million for our new hangar at the Subang Helicopter Centre. Construction [of the new hangar complex] will start before the end of this quarter and we expect it to take a year. It will be an integrated facility that will house the MRO, RSDC and a training academy.”

The academy is set to be the regional AgustaWestland Training Academy that serves as a satellite to the AWTA in Italy.

“This reduces the logistics costs for our customers who send their pilots and technicians for training to use our products,” he says. “The facility will also enable us to support more aircraft, and bigger and more advanced helicopters that will come into service in the region very soon. We will be able to perform deeper level maintenance which will inevitably improve our turnaround time and, thus, better support for our customers.”

While incentives were not the main reason for its set-up, AgustaWestland is confident that Greater Kuala Lumpur is the right location for its Asian base. Setting up the training centre was a smooth transition thanks to the facilitation provided by InvestKL.

“We learnt about incentives, in retrospect. That was not the primary driver in our case, and we got together with In- vestKL in 2013 only after we have set up shop,” says Alaimo. “However, InvestKL was crucial in developing a strategy to optimise our further investments for our expansion and take full advantage of the tax incentives here.”

Source: The Malaysian Reserve