High-Flying Saab

The Swedish company with the tongue-twisting name of Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget is known throughout the world chiefly for its sturdy, roly-poly automobiles, which bear the company abbreviation, Saab. Few outside of Scandinavia are aware that Saab is also one of the Continent's largest aircraft producers and a bulwark of Sweden's defense effort. The company has built about 90% of its country's 700-plane jet air force, the world's fifth largest--and soon it will increase even that impressive percentage. It has just been chosen by the Swedish government to build 800 Saab-designed Viggen multipurpose jet fighters, a force that will form Sweden's main line of defense during the 1970s. The Viggen project will be the largest industrial undertaking in Sweden's history, involving an expenditure of $1.6 billion over a twelve-year period.

Profits in Jets. Viggen will bring new prosperity to the already thriving 28-year-old company. Last week Saab announced that its 1964 sales rose to $221 million, its earnings to more than $3.8 million, both new records. Auto sales, which account for about 60% of the company's revenues, increased to a record 43,011 units, are expected to climb to 50,000 this year. Saab is still producing and profiting from its Draken-35 jet fighters, the current mainstay of the Swedish air force, and the piston-engine Safir trainers that are used by Sweden and five foreign nations.

The aircraft building skills that led Saab into manufacturing autos in 1949 have more recently been applied to missiles. The company produces U.S. Falcon air-to-air missiles under license from Hughes Aircraft, is developing coastal defense and ship-to-ship missiles and an advanced air-to-ground missile system that will be installed on the Viggen. Experience gained in designing miniature computers for aircraft enabled Saab to take off in another direction. In the past two years, it has sold Saab-designed commercial computers at prices ranging from $300,000 to $1,000,000, built others for use in its own plants. Other Saab sidelines: trucks and trailers, aircraft ejection seats, weapons training systems, hovercraft and helicopters.

Creativity in Design. Saab employs 14,000 workers in nine plants, one of which is carved out of the earth below 100 feet of granite to withstand bombing. The company has been ably directed for the past 15 years by President Tryggve Holm, 60, a modest, slide-rule-toting engineer. Holm insists on creativity in design, quality and efficiency in production, has instituted an incentive piecework plan that spurs employees on to faster work. Another Holm plan ensures that quality does not suffer from speed: Saab factories swarm with inspectors, one for every 16 workers.

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