To ensure the success of the nEUROn program, which the French authorities have clearly made part of the European defense dynamic by opening it up completely to cooperation, an innovative management and organization scheme has been put in place.
To ensure total efficiency, a single decision-making point, the French Direction Générale de l’Armement (DGA), and a single execution point, Dassault Aviation as prime contractor, were chosen to manage the program.
As prime contractor, Dassault Aviation ensured the synergy of skills and piloted the program as a whole, contributing its ability to direct and coordinate the partners’ work, assuming responsibility for its smooth running, and arbitrating technological choices as well as the scope and sharing of tasks between partners.
This organization has enabled optimum efficiency and cost control, within a framework of partnership and pragmatic cooperation between the various players.
In line with the objectives set by the DGA, Dassault Aviation entrusted around 50% of the value of the work to its European partners, chosen for their areas of excellence.
Dassault Aviation (France) was prime contractor for the project, responsible for overall design and system architecture, flight controls, stealth devices, final assembly, systems integration, as well as ground and flight testing,
Alenia Aermacchi (now Leonardo, Italy) contributed to the project with an innovative Smart Integrated Weapon Bay (SIWB) concept, an internal EO/IR sensor, the payload bay doors and their opening mechanism, as well as the aircraft’s electrical system and anemometry,
SAAB (Sweden) was responsible for the design of the main fuselage, gear doors, avionics and fuel system,
EADS-CASA (now Airbus Defence & Space, Spain) contributed its experience for the wings, ground segment and data link integration,
Hellenic Aerospace Industry – HAI (Greece) was responsible for the aft fuselage section, the nozzle, and the supply of racks for the “global integration bench”,
RUAG (Switzerland) was in charge of low-speed wind tunnel testing, and the interfaces between the aircraft and the weapons.