Apriso, the leading provider of manufacturing software solutions, today announced Bombardier Aerospace will expand its agreement with Apriso by standardizing on Apriso's FlexNet as their enterprise solution for Manufacturing Operations Management (MOM). Bombardier will work with Apriso to support its production of both the CSeries and Learjet 85 aircraft at its facilities in Canada and Mexico, demonstrating FlexNet's ability to manage highly complex production, quality, maintenance and material synchronization processes within an aerospace manufacturing environment.

This expanded commitment includes deploying Apriso's FlexNet as an enterprise solution to address business-critical challenges as the company works to design and produce efficient industry leading aircraft. Given the rate of change and technological advancements with the production of these aircraft, Bombardier sought a highly flexible, scalable solution that could adapt quickly to new production processes across multiple sites.

"The FlexNet deployment for the CSeries aircraft has been a 20-month project delivering a rich set of functionality in support of the business requirements. The project is progressing well on the CSeries aircraft program," explained Colin Stewart, IT Director MES.

"The deployment in Mexico demonstrated the scalability of Apriso's FlexNet solutions where we managed to deliver a light set of functionality in support of business needs, in only 6 months. This flexibility will certainly be important for us as we rollout across all sites," continued Stewart.

As a platform-based solution, Apriso's FlexNet collaborates with other enterprise systems to ensure necessary manufacturing intelligence is available for planning (Enterprise Resource Planning or ERP) and design (Product Lifecycle Management or PLM) systems. By linking design, administrative and manufacturing processes across the enterprise, Bombardier can better adapt to changing market conditions while supporting continuous process improvement and frequent engineering change orders. Apriso's solution is supported by a Center of Excellence team (based in Bombardier's site in Northern Ireland), providing a highly efficient way for Bombardier to support and synchronize their global operations, improving agility.

"Bombardier has steadily added functionality to their FlexNet footprint, demonstrating the value of a platform-based solution. Bombardier has embraced a three-platform IT strategy by deploying PLM, ERP and MOM to serve their manufacturing design, planning and execution needs to ensure sufficient collaboration to remain current and viable in the highly competitive aerospace manufacturing industry," said Rick Gallisa, industry director at Apriso. "We are delighted to expand our partnership with Bombardier, and look forward to continuing to put in place advanced manufacturing processes in support of the company's business and production goals."