Guanajuato boosts the aerospace industry

GUANAJUATO - The state of Guanajuato boosts the aerospace industry cluster by consolidating itself as the epicenter of Industry 4.0 with an enabling ecosystem through mentefactura.

Governor Diego Sinhue Rodríguez Vallejo gave the conference "From Manufacturing to Mentefacturing, a Vision of the State of Guanajuato", as part of the Mexico Aerospace Fair (FAMEX) 2023.

"Mentefacturing in Guanajuato is a competitive advantage for the aerospace industry, human capital, capacity building. This is a 30-year proposal, a plan with a planning law, that competitive advantage only Guanajuato has," he said.

As an example, he mentioned the company Horizontec, which manufactured in Celaya the Halcón 2 airplane, the first 100% Mexican airplane (from Guanajuato) and which will have an exhibition flight as part of the activities of the Mexico Aerospace Fair.

It is an aircraft of the LSA (Light Sport Aircraft) category, a sport aircraft whose mission is basic training, recreational flight and aerial security surveillance.

It was designed, developed and manufactured in Mexico, and to achieve this goal, it has been essential to create an engineering platform (mentefactura) that has design capabilities, aerodynamic analysis, structural analysis, robust manufacturing, advanced manufacturing, electrical installation, avionics and engines.

Horizontec is part of the Bajío Aerospace Cluster, formally integrated in 2017 and currently comprising 16 companies, 10 educational institutions, two airports, two certifying entities, two startups and an incubator specialized in the aerospace sector.

In this way, the Bajío Aerospace Cluster has positioned itself among the main clusters in the sector and competes with states such as Querétaro, Chihuahua, Monterrey and Sonora, which are mainly manufacturing states.

In addition, Guanajuato has a consolidated supply chain in the automotive sector that can easily be diversified to the aerospace sector, and currently has two success stories such as Grupo Plasma Automation (León) and Boreal (Apaseo).