Site news 13.04.2011At the end of last year NPO Saturn launched the first stage of the customer support IT-system for the SaM146 engine based on the solutions developed by Luxoft. In the course of a joint press-conference held on April, 13th 2011 in Moscow, NPO Saturn and Luxoft shared some insight on their cooperation experience obtained during the development and implementation of customer support systems in the field of aerospace engineering.
According to NPO Saturn CEO, Ilya Fedorov, who took part in the press-conference, “today NPO Saturn has to offer an entire range of gas-turbine technologies for transport, defense and industrial application fully ensuring the life cycle of the products it delivers to the customer: design and development, manufacturing, marketing and sales, customer support and aftermarket services. In today’s aviation industry not a single company is capable of creating a new product without having truly advanced and operation-ensuring information system. On the other hand, the level of advancement of the information systems available in a company reflects the level of organizational maturity of its business processes.
We have gone rather far in the field of design: as a result of implementation of CAD IT systems at NPO Saturn, the lead times of a gas-turbine engine development have been decreased by 3. What is also important is that IT-support has become today an essential part of the manufacturing and operation processes. We have already achieved some tangible results with regard to customer support, at least, the IT-systems are already in operation for both D-30KU/KP and industrial turbine application, and from now on they will become operational for SaM146 as well”.
Development of key information systems at NPO Saturn:
Design.
Creation of a virtual design environment incorporating the following components:
• 3D product and respective production process design systems.
• Supercomputer engineering calculation systems.
• Test data acquisition and processing systems.
Deliverables:
From 2001 all design documents are released in electronic format, from 2003 the same applies to all process engineering documents.
In 2005 and 2008 NPO Saturn put into operation supercomputers with the performance of 1,0 and 14,3 terraflops respectively, both machines were rated the highest performing supercomputers in the industry.
The number of measuring channels used during engine tests has increased 100-fold; a system has been put in place allowing to process up to 1 petabyte of raw test data.
Engine design lead time has been decreased by 3.
Production.
A new production management model has been developed and is now in practical trial. This system will simultaneously support serial production of the SaM146 engine taking into account the requirements of foreign airworthiness authorities, as well as serial and development production of other products.
Aftermarket services.
Development of specific business models and related information systems encompassing all the aspects relevant to aftermarket support of aircraft engines, including:
• Engine fleet and in-service product configuration management.
• Ordering spare parts.
• Issue and distribution of technical publications.
• Customer support center (call-center).
• And other processes.
Deliverables:
In 2007 a customer support IT-system was launched for the D30-KU/KP/KP154 engine.
In 2010 the fist stage of a customer support IT-system for the SaM146 engine was launched.
Speaking of the SaM146 aircraft engine IT-support, NPO Saturn chief information officer Yuri Zelenkov noted: “The creation of the SaM146 engine customer support IT-system is a unique experience for Russia. The new SaM146 product is designed not only for the Russian but also for the occidental market and naturally all customer support processes are implemented by the partners – NPO Saturn and Snecma – on the principles of parity based on Western standards”.
