Airbus announced it opted for IBM (News - Alert) and OATSystems as a software solution for a RFID project that will help streamline Airbus' supply chain and manufacturing operations and reduce its aircraft production and maintenance costs.

 

Leveraging the solution, Airbus aims to automate its supply chain and manufacturing operations and at the same time reduce costs. The company has selected IBM and OAT for the project following exhaustive research and pilot testing over the past year.

 

"Airbus' 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."

 

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 take care of the infrastructure monitoring  and the solution will employ OATSystems' business applications including the OAT Foundation Suite, Asset Tracking and Work-in-Process solutions.

 

With 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.

 

In fact, 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.

 

"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."