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Partnered up with Airbus, an innovative London design firm is fine-tuning app-controlled seats you can adjust on your smartphone
Four years ago, the London-based industrial designer Benjamin Hubert quietly closed down his namesake practice. “I kept getting approached to come up with yet another chair,” says Hubert, 35. “And I very much wanted to move beyond that.” He soon re-emerged as the founder and creative director of the strategic agency Layer Design.
The pivot paid off. Today, Layer is a firm of around 30 international creatives with expertise across industrial, experiential and digital design. The studio’s clients range from Vitra and Braun to Nike and Google.
Hubert explains that Layer’s work, which is both material focused and tech confident, sits at the intersection of two ends of the design spectrum: “On one end you have highly crafted, lifestyle-driven product and accessories, while on the other you have super-strategic industrial design or branding work. We bring together the softness of the former and the rigor of the latter.”
Excerpt from WSJ
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Muilenburg won’t receive bonus compensation this year or stock grants until 737 MAX is flying again
Boeing Co. ’s newly installed chairman backed embattled Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg on Tuesday, while acknowledging a series of engineering missteps that led to two deadly crashes of the 737 MAX.
Boeing Chairman Dave Calhoun said Mr. Muilenburg wouldn’t receive bonus pay this year and wouldn’t receive stock grants until the grounded jet fully returns to service, a process that may unfold globally through all of next year. Mr. Calhoun said it was the CEO’s idea to reduce his compensation.
Excerpt from WSJ
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European plane maker’s move comes as U.S. rival grapples with trade tensions, MAX grounding
Airbus SE EADSY 0.60% plans to boost jetliner production in China, bolstering its position in what is set to be the world’s biggest aviation market and piling further pressure on Boeing Co. as the U.S. company contends with trade tensions and the grounding of its 737 MAX plane.
The France-based plane maker is gaining market share while Boeing grapples with the global grounding of the MAX after two fatal crashes and a dearth of orders for larger aircraft. The U.S. aerospace giant’s efforts in China are also being hindered by the continuing trade dispute between the two countries.
Airbus said Wednesday that it would expand its A330 wide-body completion center in Tianjin to be able to handle its bigger A350 model. The company is also lifting local production of its A320neo, its 737 MAX competitor.
The agreement with the Chinese government was outlined during a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in Beijing.
The move comes weeks after Boeing was forced to cut back production rates for its 787 Dreamliner, citing U.S. trade tensions with China and a lack of demand from Chinese carriers. Boeing’s last China order was in November 2017.
Airbus has meanwhile been leveraging the fallout by boosting its production in China and winning orders for its own models. Its last order from China was as recent as March.
Excerpt from WSJ
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Rolls-Royce Holdings PLC (RR.LN) on Thursday warned of a further earnings and cash-flow hit on the back of issues in its troubled Trent 1000 engines, as the company expects to book a charge of 1.4 billion pounds ($1.80 billion).
The British aircraft-engine maker said it now expects full-year operating profit and free cash-flow to be toward the lower end of its guidance ranges as a result of higher costs in fixing Trent 1000 engines used on Boeing Co. ’s (BA) 787 Dreamliner planes.
The company estimates in-service cash costs over the Trent 1000 issues will amount to GBP2.4 billion across the 2017-23 period. This includes GBP1.6 billion previously expected, a fresh GBP400 million hit and a further GBP400 million in costs previously included within the company’s normal program contingency, Rolls-Royce said.
Excerpt from WSJ