General Electric – “Most Respected Company in the World” for 7 years in a row by Fortune magazine – chooses Romania for its first manufacturing operation in Southeastern Europe. The domain selected by GE for this operation is high-tech: the manufacturing of aircraft engines components; the company is Turbomecanica Combustor Products (TMCP) for which GE Aviation agreed to purchase the remaining 50 per cent ownership from its current joint-venture partner Turbomecanica S.A.

 “GE, a real global company, invests in geographical areas with high expansion potential. Romania is a very important market, experiencing growth in many sectors and it was normal for us to take into consideration all opportunities to grow our local presence”, said Dan Ionescu, GE Regional Executive South East Europe.

This acquisition of Turbomecanica Combustor Products (TMCP) fortifies GE Aviation’s European manufacturing presence and helps enhance international marketing and sales efforts for the portfolio of GE engines.

Since the creation of the joint venture, many investments have been made in the facility which is now endowed with some of the best, state of the art production equipment in Europe. TMCP provides extensive manufacturing capacity for CF34 and CFM56 engines: approximately 50 per cent of the combustors for these 2 engine lines are produced here, in Romania. The components crafted at the plant are exported to USA and then distributed all over the world.

“GE considers this acquisition as a solid opportunity to further develop the significant intellectual investment made over the past four years in TMCP, further enhance productivity and confirm customer expectation related to an increasing combustor order volume. By continuing to focus on our manufacturing proven methodologies (called “Six Sigma”), that optimize efficiency by enabling GE to proactively reduce errors in products, services and processes, we look to further enhance productivity and maintain world-class status in the manufacturing of high technology aircraft engines components”, said Jacques Juneau, Executive Officer of TMCP.

TMCP has been set up by a joint venture between GE Aircraft Engines and Turbomecanica in March 2002 to manufacture combustors for aviation engines. The facility will continue to operate as it is presently constituted, focusing on helping the business meet our customer requirements, with no adverse impact on the workforce.

NOTE: GE is a worldwide market leader in almost all its sectors of activity and the second-largest company in the world by market capitalization. GE is already present in Romania in the domain of health, in the energy sector, as provider of high-tech and also with GE Money, the global consumer finance unit of General Electric Company (NYSE: GE), that acquired full control last year of three non-banking financial institutions – Leasemart Holding BV (Leasemart, trading under the “Motoractive” brand), Ralfi S.A. (Ralfi, trading under the “Estima Finance” brand) and Domenia Credit S.A. (Domenia)

GE first launched its first CF34 model in 1983 by taking the durable TF34 military engine and developing it into a business jet engine. A decade later, GE further developed the CF34 for a new breed of aircraft — regional jets. Today, GE continues to pioneer new technology in this market by developing and certifying new, higher thrust versions of the CF34 for the latest 70- to 90-passenger regional jets.

Over the past decade, GE has invested more than $1 billion to develop the CF34 engine family. To date, more than 5,600 CF34 engines are on order, including more than 1,500 in service worldwide.

Source:
www.geaviation.com/aboutgeae/presscenter/cf34/cf34_2003327.html

ABOUT the CFM56 engines:

The CFM56 is a very sophisticated engine that in many regards is replacing the Pratt & Whitney JT8D as the workhorse of the industry. CFM56 is deployed on the new generation Boeing 737s and Airbus A320, among other aircraft. About 15,000 CFM56 jet series engines are in service today.

Source:
ww.usitoday.com/article_view.asp?ArticleID=2121

Components of a jet engine

Source:
www.ueet.nasa.gov/StudentSite/engines.html

The First Jet Flight: 1910 (7yrs after Wright flight)
Invented in by HENRI COANDA (Romania) see