Airbus Selects IBM And OATsystems For World's Largest RFID-Enabled Manufacturing Initiative
IBM and OATSystems recently announced that Airbus has selected them to provide a software solution for a multi-million dollar, multi-year RFID project that will help streamline Airbus's supply chain and manufacturing operations and significantly reduce its aircraft production and maintenance costs. The project represents the manufacturing industry's single largest RFID software transaction to date.
Using a solution comprised of software from IBM and OAT, Airbus' objective is to error-proof and automate its supply chain and manufacturing operations, while also reducing costs. The company selected IBM and OAT for the project following exhaustive research and pilot testing over the past year.
The IBM/OAT solution runs on IBM's RFID infrastructure, which is powered by service oriented architecture technology that includes the IBM WebSphere Premises Server and the IBM Business Process Management portfolio, including WebSphere Process Server and WebSphere Business Monitor. The IBM Tivoli Monitoring and IBM Tivoli Composite Application software products will be used for infrastructure monitoring. The solution will use OATSystems' business applications including the OAT Foundation Suite, Asset Tracking and Work-in-Process solutions.
Using IBM's scaleable software and OATSystems' production-ready solutions, Airbus will be able to integrate RFID into existing applications easily and quickly, transform and streamline current business processes and gain real-time visibility into daily operations. Most important, IBM and OAT's flexible architecture enables it to distribute computing to devices such as RFID readers, handheld devices, servers or any combination of those. Using this solution, Airbus will be able to deploy applications centrally at its distributed facilities, or even at remote third-party sites to address specific business scenarios.
"Airbus's decision to use RFID across its operations sends a clear signal to manufacturers – that RFID isn't a technology for ‘someday,' it can bring manufacturers a competitive edge right now," said Martin Wildberger, vice president, RFID solutions, IBM. "By giving Airbus greater visibility into its business processes, RFID can help serve as an engine for business transformation inside Airbus and across its partner network."
"This move serves as testimony to Airbus' continued leadership, and will demonstrate how an industry giant can put RFID to work throughout its operations to gain substantial efficiencies and competitive advantages; we're very pleased to be part of this strategic and thought-leading initiative," said Michael George, chief executive officer, OATSystems. "This is yet another example of how RFID's core value is its ability to transform and improve business processes dramatically."
IBM and OAT will be making their solution available to Airbus' suppliers and customers, so that they can benefit from the same RFID advantages.
About IBM
A pioneer in sensor technology and a leader in IT and business strategy, IBM offers sensor and actuator solutions that unlock new business value and help drive new insights and innovation. For more information on IBM's RFID solutions, visit www.ibm.com/solutions/sensors
About OATsystems
OATSystems, Inc. is the recognized RFID solution leader with software that empowers businesses to achieve competitive advantage and ROI from radio-frequency identification (RFID) enabled applications. As a pioneer in developing RFID technology, OAT has been setting the standards in RFID for over half a decade and is responsible for industry firsts that include the largest scale and largest scope of deployments, as well as the most innovative approaches to providing enterprise-wide RFID solutions. OAT's multinational client base consists of over 100 customers in retail, CPG, consumer electronics, manufacturing, life sciences, aerospace and defense. OAT is headquartered in Waltham, MA, and has a development office in Bangalore and various direct sales offices and resellers around the globe. To learn more about the company's latest developments, visit www.oatsystems.com.