Airbus Produces New Class Of Aircraft With SCM Solutions From SAP

SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced that Airbus, Europe's leading aircraft manufacturer, has implemented SAP solutions to expedite production of the world's largest passenger aircraft. Airbus has deployed SAP Advanced Planning & Optimization (SAP APO), a key component of mySAP Supply Chain Management (mySAP SCM), to streamline business and manufacturing processes for the assembly of the new A380 superjumbo. With mySAP SCM, Airbus will be able to enhance collaboration between multiple production sites, improve productivity on the shop floor and easily integrate front- and back-end operations across the entire enterprise.

Airbus, a company jointly owned by the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) and BAE Systems, is divided into four separate operational entities located in Germany, France, Spain and the United Kingdom. The company typically produces different sections of an aircraft in its four sites before all parts are shipped to Toulouse, France, and Hamburg, Germany for final assembly. With this type of organizational and operational structure, Airbus recognized the need for an adaptive, sophisticated supply chain solution that could gather data on all the procedures and processes across the different company organizations and consolidate it into a single supply chain view. Having experienced long-standing success with SAP R/3 in each of its production sites, Airbus turned to SAP to evolve its IT infrastructure and integrate operations among multiple manufacturing locations.

"SAP has helped us to implement a common supply chain planning system that harmonizes processes across all our sites and supports a tightly coordinated network that works together seamlessly and efficiently," said Jean-Pierre Albaret, vice president of Information Management at Airbus. "In addition, the new system integrated easily into our existing back-end processes, which helped us to complete a quick implementation and gain immediate benefit from our deployment of SAP APO. As a long-time customer, we were confident that we could turn to SAP to understand our situation and bring innovation and efficiency to our operations."

The implementation was quick and straightforward, due to the standard SAP interfaces which integrated the business processes from the existing SAP R/3 production systems into a new platform for collaborative planning at Airbus, resulting in minimal impact to the existing systems. Airbus is implementing SAP APO step-by-step according to the Airbus A380 supply chain process needs. This approach gave Airbus greater flexibility during the implementation and ensures benefits from the new solution through multiple value cycles. The first phase of the project was completed in early June 2003.

By choosing SAP's integrated SCM solution, Airbus leverages its investment in SAP offerings such as mySAP Supplier Relationship Management (mySAP SRM), mySAP Product Lifecycle Management (mySAP PLM) and SAP Business Information Warehouse (SAP BW).

Efficiency Gains in Shop Floor Operations
As the deadline for final assembly of the A380 draws nearer, the issue of assembly management along the production cycle will become even more crucial. Due to its seamless integration with the enterprise resource planning (ERP) system already in place, SAP's supply chain management solution draws on real-time manufacturing and logistics information directly from the Airbus manufacturing shop floor, including production order status and material availability. With the wider visibility of operations now available with mySAP SCM, assembly workers and managers can more precisely balance material, labor and equipment constraints with anticipated customer demand within the supply chain. This process enables Airbus to improve the accuracy of forecasts for the organization's entire sales and operations planning process, and helps the company meet its production deadlines.

"The industry specific capabilities and flexibility of mySAP SCM address all the production needs of the Airbus A380, including support for discrete manufacturing processes, complete visibility into shop floor operations and the ability to integrate quickly into existing back-end processes," said Claus Heinrich, executive board member, SAP. "To meet these exacting requirements, we have drawn on our long-standing experience with more than 200 customers in the aviation industry and our wealth of best practices to deliver a supply chain planning and collaboration solution that can drive the manufacturing of this new generation of aircraft."

About Airbus
Based in Toulouse, France, a company jointly owned by the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS) and BAE Systems. The company has over 45,000 employees working mainly at operations in Germany, France, Great Britain and Spain. In these countries it has 16 development and production sites which not only manufacture complete sections of the aircraft but are at the same time centres of competence for their respective fields. The fully equipped sections are delivered to Toulouse (A320, A300/310, A330/340 and in the future A380) or Hamburg (A318, A319, A321 and in the future A380) for final assembly.

About SAP
SAP is the world's leading provider of business software solutions. Through mySAP Business Suite, people in businesses around the globe are improving relationships with customers and partners, streamlining operations and achieving significant efficiencies throughout their supply chains. The unique core processes of various industries, from aerospace to utilities, are supported effectively by SAP's 23 industry solution portfolios. Today, more than 20,000 companies in over 120 countries run more than 64,500 installations of SAP software.

With subsidiaries in over 50 countries, the company is listed on several exchanges, including the Frankfurt stock exchange and NYSE under the symbol "SAP." (Additional information at www.sap.com)