Greensboro, 4 March 2025 – The ZIM Aircraft Seating Group today opens its new test centre at the Greensboro site. Static and dynamic substantiation tests for seat structures can in future be carried out in-house to a much greater extent. This shortens substantiation lead times and makes them easier to plan, so that certification processes for customer projects run faster and more reliably.
Why test capacity determines programme schedules
Between a finished design and a certified seat lie substantiation tests, for which slots at external test houses are often allocated months in advance. Anyone who holds this capacity in-house decouples the programme schedule from third-party booking plans: tests can be brought forward, repeated and fed straight back into design changes.
Substantiation, testing and iteration under one roof
Seat structures and components are tested under load, over their service life and for function. What matters here is less the individual test than the number of loops: a design tested in-house can be adapted and retested within days of a test. It is precisely this speed of iteration that determines how quickly a seat reaches series maturity.
Interaction with the FAA ODA
The Greensboro site holds an FAA Organization Designation Authorization. Test capacity and certification authority are thus located in one place and within one organisation. This considerably shortens the path from conducting a test to documenting and gaining acceptance of the results.
A test network spanning two continents
The Group now has its own test capacity in both Germany and the USA: in Immenstaad through the automated test centre established there, and in Greensboro through the expanded facility. Test programmes can be distributed between the sites, peak loads can be absorbed, and customers in North America and Europe have access to the same substantiation standard.
Statement by Yvonne McConachie, CEO ZIM USA
“Test capacity is delivery reliability,” says Yvonne McConachie. “When we test in-house, we keep deadlines that others have to make dependent on the availability of external test rigs.”
