CAP GEMINI ERNST & YOUNG PUTS AIRBUS INDUSTRIE ONLINE
26 October 2000
Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, one of the world leaders in management consultancyand IT services, has developed an extranet* for Airbus Industrie providing
airlines with totally secure access to mechanical diagrams and service
bulletins that detail modifications made to an aircraft during the assembly
phase.
In an extremely competitive environment, “customer relations” constitute a
key factor of differentiation for Airbus Industrie. The company wished to
implement high-performance solutions to facilitate access for airlines to a
vast body of knowledge (plans, specifications, manuals, know-how, etc.) with
maximum efficiency and optimization of the cost of customer support.
Airbus Online Services (AOLS), the information exchange platform developed
by Cap Gemini Ernst & Young and Airbus Industrie, has been successfully
piloted for a year by some ten airlines. Service bulletins are now available
in real time, 7 days a week and 24 hours a day, while this type of
information was previously mailed out once a month. The online retrieval of
mechanical diagrams now saves Airbus from having to furnish customers who
connect to the service with the punch cards that normally accompany
microfilms, a considerable benefit considering that an aircraft represents
between 100,000 and 200,000 punch cards.
The success of this project owes much to the strong desire of both teams to
meet multiple technical challenges: worldwide coverage in view of Airbus’’s
customers, emerging technologies (in areas such as the authentication of
log-ons), the exclusion of proprietary software, the choice of an access
network for customers and short response times for the transmission of
plans*, all with a deployment schedule of around 8 months. The experience
acquired in this project strengthens Cap Gemini Ernst & Young’’s expertise in
secure Internet portals, which is also being developed in the Group’’s
Toulouse-based e-business skill center.
Launched in June 2000, the rollout phase should see roughly thirty airlines
connected to AOLS by the end of the year. The long-term objective is to
provide an entire “bouquet” of services to all companies and air transport
players in contact with Airbus Industrie, namely 180 airlines, 250 equipment
manufacturers, 5 engine manufacturers, twenty maintenance companies and
thirty regulatory authorities, through a portal which will serve as a single
point of contact.
* The AOLS extranet has been produced in conjunction with Sun Microsystems
for the systems architecture and network infrastructure. Access is granted
by authentication (delivery of certificates via a series of firewalls and
proxy servers). As far as performance is concerned, simultaneous downloading
of a 250K mechanical diagram by 30 users will take no more than 12 seconds.
Cap Gemini Ernst & Young
The Cap Gemini Ernst & Young Group is one of the largest management and IT
consulting firms in the world. The organization employs more than 56,000
people worldwide and reports global revenues of about 7.7 billion euros
(1999 proforma).
With 35% of its business in North America and 62% in Europe, Cap Gemini
Ernst & Young has emerged as the world leader on the e-business market.
For further information: www.capgemini.com
