IBM Case Studies To Infinity and Beyond Aerospace Industry Finds Resilience in the Cloud

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	To Infinity and Beyond Aerospace Industry Finds Resilience in the Cloud IBM

To Infinity and Beyond Aerospace Industry Finds Resilience in the Cloud

IBM

Technology Category	Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing
Applicable Industries	Aerospace
Applicable Functions	Discrete Manufacturing Procurement
Use Cases	Supply Chain Visibility
Services	Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services System Integration
Challenge	UmbraGroup, an Italian manufacturer, is a strategic supplier to aerospace companies globally. The company's clients depend on UmbraGroup’s high-precision mechanical components to keep their aircraft in the air and their machinery running. In today’s operating environment of just-in-time supply chain management, these companies demand a lot from their suppliers. UmbraGroup needed to ensure its resiliency as a key supplier. The importance of resiliency for UmbraGroup took on added urgency as it began acquiring new operations, including two manufacturers in Germany and one in the United States. The company had to ensure the worldwide availability of their systems across multiple time zones, well beyond their headquarters and main datacenter in Foligno. In addition to the usual resiliency challenges, earthquakes are a fact of life in central Italy. UmbraGroup needed to be sure that even an earthquake won’t stop production and shipment to clients. Read More
About Customer	UmbraGroup is a privately held company headquartered in Foligno, Italy. The company is a strategic supplier to aerospace companies including Boeing, Airbus, British Airways, Lufthansa, KLM, Lockheed Martin, Trumpf and Mori Seiki. These companies depend on UmbraGroup’s high-precision mechanical components to keep their aircraft in the air and their machinery running. The group’s industrial and energy clients also depend on a steady supply of UmbraGroup’s screws, bearings and electromechanical parts. UmbraGroup has operations in Germany and the United States. The company completed a two-year consolidation of the group’s Enterprise Resource Planning system in 2012, combining all four companies under one IT umbrella. Read More
Solution	UmbraGroup turned to IBM, an internationally recognized IT partner, to ensure its resiliency as a key supplier. IBM was able to take UmbraGroup’s requirements and find the right balance among performance, service levels and costs. IBM’s cloud offering is built in a modular way and has a pay-for-what-you-use pricing. The cloud offering relies on pre-configured hardware and dynamic provisioning to replicate everything to a remote datacenter, so the time to implement is minimal. IBM and UmbraGroup are designing a continuity plan that defines all the procedures and dependencies in operations as well as technology. They are working through every process to make sure that no step is dependent on a single individual. The objective is to have a failover plan that covers all operations in case of emergency—a plan that can reduce dependencies or identify a way to work around them if necessary. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing

Applicable Industries

Aerospace

Applicable Functions

Discrete Manufacturing

Procurement

Use Cases

Supply Chain Visibility

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services

System Integration

Challenge

UmbraGroup, an Italian manufacturer, is a strategic supplier to aerospace companies globally. The company's clients depend on UmbraGroup’s high-precision mechanical components to keep their aircraft in the air and their machinery running. In today’s operating environment of just-in-time supply chain management, these companies demand a lot from their suppliers. UmbraGroup needed to ensure its resiliency as a key supplier. The importance of resiliency for UmbraGroup took on added urgency as it began acquiring new operations, including two manufacturers in Germany and one in the United States. The company had to ensure the worldwide availability of their systems across multiple time zones, well beyond their headquarters and main datacenter in Foligno. In addition to the usual resiliency challenges, earthquakes are a fact of life in central Italy. UmbraGroup needed to be sure that even an earthquake won’t stop production and shipment to clients.

About Customer

UmbraGroup is a privately held company headquartered in Foligno, Italy. The company is a strategic supplier to aerospace companies including Boeing, Airbus, British Airways, Lufthansa, KLM, Lockheed Martin, Trumpf and Mori Seiki. These companies depend on UmbraGroup’s high-precision mechanical components to keep their aircraft in the air and their machinery running. The group’s industrial and energy clients also depend on a steady supply of UmbraGroup’s screws, bearings and electromechanical parts. UmbraGroup has operations in Germany and the United States. The company completed a two-year consolidation of the group’s Enterprise Resource Planning system in 2012, combining all four companies under one IT umbrella.

Solution

UmbraGroup turned to IBM, an internationally recognized IT partner, to ensure its resiliency as a key supplier. IBM was able to take UmbraGroup’s requirements and find the right balance among performance, service levels and costs. IBM’s cloud offering is built in a modular way and has a pay-for-what-you-use pricing. The cloud offering relies on pre-configured hardware and dynamic provisioning to replicate everything to a remote datacenter, so the time to implement is minimal. IBM and UmbraGroup are designing a continuity plan that defines all the procedures and dependencies in operations as well as technology. They are working through every process to make sure that no step is dependent on a single individual. The objective is to have a failover plan that covers all operations in case of emergency—a plan that can reduce dependencies or identify a way to work around them if necessary.

Impact #1	UmbraGroup now has a disaster recovery solution in place.
Impact #2	The company has a unified ERP system that reinforces the need for resiliency.
Impact #3	UmbraGroup can continue to maintain a very lean IT environment, relative to the size of the group, the geographic spread of its business and the high expectations of the group’s global clients.

Impact #1

UmbraGroup now has a disaster recovery solution in place.

Impact #2

The company has a unified ERP system that reinforces the need for resiliency.

Impact #3

UmbraGroup can continue to maintain a very lean IT environment, relative to the size of the group, the geographic spread of its business and the high expectations of the group’s global clients.

Benefit #1	Implementation of the solution was completed within a couple of weeks.
Benefit #2	The solution does not require any dedicated personnel, freeing up resources.

Benefit #1

Implementation of the solution was completed within a couple of weeks.

Benefit #2

The solution does not require any dedicated personnel, freeing up resources.

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Overview

To Infinity and Beyond Aerospace Industry Finds Resilience in the Cloud

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit