Powerful new software tool begins to energise aerospace programmes
Bristol, UK, Monday June 18, 2007
The first product of Acsian Ltd, an innovative software company spin-off from Southampton University, is delivering benefits to several key aerospace programmes.
The product Acsian has developed, named Plexus, is a powerful software tool designed to make highly complex projects easier to plan, more efficient and less risky. Already in use with Rolls-Royce programmes, Plexus has recently been adopted by industry teams developing propulsion systems for the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF).
Ian Poccachard, Acsian’s Managing Director, is confident Plexus will gain further users throughout the aerospace industry as it continues to prove its capabilities.
“Plexus provides a project planning system that operates across geographical and functional divides,” said Ian. “This tool enables an integrated plan to develop from the highest-level project milestones to the most detailed design-and-make plans, based on the flow of information and data among all the activities on a programme. It can capture enterprise-wide interactions, all the way from business development to aftermarket activities.”
Plexus enables information-driven planning techniques to thrive – and has the potential to save at least five per cent of the cost of major new programmes, believes Ian Poccachard. Its targets include reducing research and development costs through better efficiency and reduced rework, lowering time between programme launch and certification, reducing modifications after certification and speeding the planning cycle through more effective use of standardised project logic.
A recent three-day planning workshop run by the JSF project integrated inputs from more than 40 participants in the UK and the United States, creating a common project model in a systematic way.
“An important advantage of this tool is that it facilitates groups who normally do not talk with one another, sharing their views and identifying dependencies,” said Neil Mehta, Programme Executive Liftsystem for Rolls-Royce.
Acsian is now one year into a four-year collaboration agreement with Rolls-Royce.