LAUAK, a French manufacturer, has selected IFS Applications 10. Founded in 1975, LAUAK serves some of the world’s largest aircraft and equipment manufacturers, with 1,500+ employees working at six sites across France and Portugal.
It produces detail parts, subassemblies, aircraft fuselages and cockpit structures in the A&D sector. It customers and partners include Airbus, Dassault Aviation, Ebraer, Eurocopter, IAI, Bombardier, Aernnova, Aerolia, Daher Socata, Sogerma, Liebherr, Safran and Honeywell Secan.
Mikel Charritton, General Manager at LAUAK said: “As a multi-site enterprise with frequent interactions between our different factories, we are aware of the urgency of equipping ourselves with a more agile solution. Another important consideration is our ambition to accelerate our international development, especially in North America.”
The LUAK need
LAUAK needed to replace its legacy business system with a modern solution which is capable of dealing with the ever larger amount of data generated by the business. Following an evaluation process, LUAK selected IFS Applications 10.
The three primary objectives are to:
- accelerate international growth
- support a digitalization strategy
- harmonize global business processes.
The IFS Applications will be a key component of LAUAK’s strategic digital transformation. In integral element is deployment of IoT-connected assets. These will ensure optimal production performance as well as integration of new services being offered to LAUAK’s customers.
For example, IFS IoT Business Connector provides an end-to-end reference architecture with the ability to control what actions to take when IoT flgs up ‘observations’. In addition, the IFS IoT Business Connector comes with:
- plug-n-play connectivity – from Microsoft Azure into IFS software
- an open API for integrating bespoke discovery solutions or third-party discovery applications.
Implementation
The initial implementation phase will see IFS Applications 10 deployed at LAUAK’s production facility in Portugal. Once proven, the applications will roll out across the entire business.
According to Mr. Charriton, “The Portuguese pilot site will be a true Factory 4.0 featuring cutting-edge technology to enable automation through connected equipment. We look forward to embracing this exciting project, in which IFS Applications 10 will play a key role in terms of data collection and analysis to power our digital transformation. By implementing a modern solution, we will also be able to harmonize and standardize our business processes, share best practices throughout the organization and map our entire value chain.”
Amor Bekrar, general manager for IFS in France, concluded, “We are very excited to add LAUAK to our extensive customer base in the A&D sector. IFS Applications 10 was designed to connect the business to a digital backbone and to support customers in their adoption of disruptive trends such as automation, IoT and servitization. In the highly competitive aerospace sector, these technologies are especially important drivers of performance and growth. We look forward to beginning the collaboration with LAUAK and to contribute to their digital transformation journey.”
What does this mean
This is not the first time that Enterprise Times has encountered IFS and IoT. It is in use in the oil and gas sector.
The attraction for the A&D sector is similar. The more information generated about, in this case LUAK’s, products, the better LUAK should be able to maintain customer satisfaction. From what LUAK says, the IFS applications are the integral part in moving towards both internal and external digital transformation.
