Great and small

At a new facility on the northwestern periphery of Toronto Pearson Airport, a fresh approach to aircraft manufacturing is taking off. “It’s a real contrast to the old buildings that we occupied for 30 years,” says Julien Boudreault, the vice-president of project management at Montréal-based aerospace firm Bombardier, which was founded in Québec in 1942.

Opened in May, this is where Bombardier makes its Global 6500 and 7500 series of business and private jets. The manufacturing hub marks several firsts for Canada’s aircraft industry and signals a fresh focus for the storied manufacturer at a time when demand for its planes – from military, government and private clients – is in the ascendant.

Arrayed around the 71,500 sq m facility are jets at various stages of completion. On the morning when monocle visits, we see electricians tweaking the cabling inside a plane’s wing, while engineers review the underbelly of another. The lozenge-shaped doorway of a third aircraft is undergoing a mechanical inspection.

Unusually for a manufacturing hub of this scale and type, the staff members who are hard at work on the production floor aren’t bathed in the glare of artificial lights hanging overhead. “We have unlocked the daylight,” says Lilia Koleva, a partner and architect at Montréal-based practice neuf, which designed the complex. “Architecturally, that is probably one of our biggest successes here.”

“That might not seem like a lot but it feels significant when you have spent years in facilities that felt like caves, where you never saw the daylight while you worked,” adds Boudreault. Translucent and semi-translucent panels are installed in the windows and hangar doors. Because of innovations in their design, they are as flame-resistant and combustion-proof as panels made from the heavier materials conventionally used in hangar construction, which tend to be impermeable to natural light. “All of a sudden, you get this new world where you can feel the sun and take it all in.”

Smart but seemingly simple architectural interventions such as this can have multiple benefits. The purpose, in this case, is not only to elevate the working conditions on the assembly floor, where most of Bombardier’s 2,000 or so Toronto-based personnel spend much of their time. According to Boudreault, the facility’s design will also boost the mobility and efficiency of the company’s production lines, at a time when demand for its aircraft is booming, following a major overhaul of the wider business in recent years.

Québécois mechanical engineer Joseph-Armand established Bombardier in the 1930s when he built Canada’s first commercially available snow plough. The company was incorporated in 1942 and grew to become one of the country’s best-known manufacturers, producing trains, aircraft and other vehicles. But in 2020, Bombardier sold its train-building and commercial-jet operations to focus on its private, business and defence divisions, as well as on its EcoJet facility, which is developing planes powered by electricity.

Currently, Bombardier’s business is anchored by its Global series of jets. Once assembled in Toronto, the aircraft are flown to Montréal, where their interiors are furnished and finished before delivery. The series has set new standards for the duration that a twin-engine aircraft can stay airborne, as well as for fuel efficiency. In 2019 a Global 7500 aircraft broke an intercity record when it flew more than 15,200km from Sydney to Detroit non-stop, with ample fuel to spare.

Meanwhile, the Global 6500 model has long been attractive to military and government clients for the high altitudes at which it can fly, as well as for its long lifespan and adaptability for intelligence-gathering and reconnaissance missions. Following the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in 2014, the Australian military deployed a Global 6500 to search vast areas of the Pacific Ocean. In December 2023, the US military placed an order for three Global 6500s, which it intends to equip as spy planes.

The private-jet use of celebrities and other wealthy people has received criticism in recent years – but even this unwanted scrutiny has increased interest in the Global series. Many prospective clients who are keen to acquire an aircraft that is gentler on the environment are turning to Bombardier. A new addition, the Global 8000, is under development and expected to be airborne late next year. 

All of that, says Boudreault, explains why the innovative design of the new Toronto hub, which operates 24 hours a day, is so crucial in allowing Bombardier to play a role in shaping the future of mobility by air. “That’s the science and art of a facility such as this: to be able to meet all of the requirements and generate operational efficiency, as well as a momentum and a flow that works.”

The layout of the hangar allows every aircraft to be moved easily by crane from one stage of the production process to the next, from the attachment of the body to the wings at the beginning to the assembly of the cockpit and the engines. Tool stations and desks for project managers are nestled among the assembly lines; this ensures that parts, tools and other equipment can be retrieved quickly and that questions are answered promptly without the need for engineers to stray too far from the aircraft that they are working on.

Other aspects of the hangar design complement this. Self-service canteens and nicely appointed bathrooms have been built into the hangar’s periphery, meaning that personnel don’t have to take long, winding routes through the complex when they take a break. 

“We are always bringing it back to this but a happy workforce is a productive workforce,” says Boudreault. “That’s why it was important for us to bring in all of these other elements and consider things that people wouldn’t expect to find in an ordinary factory.” — L
bombardier.com