STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Oct. 14, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- Intentia International AB (publ) (XSSE:INT B), the global enterprise provider for the manufacturing, distribution and maintenance industries announces that SAS Technical Services is investing in Intentia Application Suite in order to further reinforce the company's position as a leading supplier of overall solutions for maintenance and the provision of spare parts to global airline companies.
The market for airplane maintenance is highly competitive, especially in Europe. Prices are heavily squeezed among airline companies that are striving to lower maintenance costs, while ticket prices are falling and fuel costs rising.
Prices are also under the great pressure created by an extensive overcapacity from both airline companies' own maintenance organizations and from independent MRO (maintenance, repair and overhaul) companies. Thus, the business is currently being restructured. More and more airline companies are choosing to outsource maintenance to subcontractors who can offer lower total costs through larger volumes and specialized know-how.
"SAS Technical Services offers a full service program, totally adapted to customer needs. Our main strengths are high quality, engineering skills, short lead times and low costs combined with great flexibility. Efficient full service demands well-developed IT support for efficient handling of order management, which in turn can meet the extreme demands on information exchange and traceability that flight security demands," says Per Magne Mathisen, Vice President, Airframe Maintenance, SAS Technical Services.
"The implementation of Intentia Application Suite as a common business system at the SAS Technical Services group gives us a much better possibility to use the whole potential of STS for all our customers," he continues.
Mats Wehlin, the CIO of SAS Technical Services, comments: "We have been cooperating with Intentia for a long time within the areas of logistics and material supplies. The implementation of the latest version of Intentia Application Suite at our subsidiary Braathens Technical Services has also shown that the new version not only offers the functionality needed, but that it is also a technical platform that will support our current rapid pace of development. For these reasons, it was a very logical decision to choose the Intentia MRO solution as a common platform for the group."
SAS Technical Services will focus on customer orders when it comes to managing the business with the new system. The integrated flow of information in Intentia Application Suite gives the customer greater distinction and precision when it comes to what has been ordered, performed, delivered and invoiced.
For SAS Technical Services, this will result in major simplifications in administration, which previously was a bottleneck. Both customer orders and orders to suppliers will be placed electronically on site and with integrations according to SPEC2000 to both the customer systems and suppliers and e-marketplaces like AeroXchange.
"Ordering, planning and follow-up can be more closely connected, which will give us better use of our capacity and precision in follow-up in order to handle the low margins of the market, while keeping the profitability. In short, we will have the possibility to handle a larger number of customers," says Hans Lindberg, the CFO of SAS Technical Services.
The implementation of the latest version of Intentia Application Suite will also create the basis for production effectiveness. Today, too much time is spent looking up and reporting information on paper.
The reduced time for handling information will, of course, increase internal efficiency, but will also be of great importance for SAS Technical Services' customers. Estimates show that a flight delay caused by a technical problem may cost airline companies over 100 euros per minute.
Patrik Hillelson, a senior MRO advisor at Intentia, concludes, "In order to achieve profitability within MRO, another type of IT system is needed than what companies have today. It must support the differences between internal maintenance and MRO as a business activity with real customers. Today, we can support the business model for MRO that companies like SAS Technical Services need, which increases competitiveness in an extremely tough market."
About SAS Technical Services
SAS Technical Services is the leading provider of aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul in the Nordic region. The company is fully owned by the SAS Group, has 3700 employees and a turnover of approximately EUR 600 million.
About Intentia
Intentia is the only global enterprise solutions provider 100% dedicated to bringing software applications and consulting services to companies whose core processes involve manufacturing, distribution and maintenance -- what we call the "make, move and maintain" market.
- 100% of our resources are committed to this market. - 100% of our software is designed for this market. - 100% of our experience is in serving this market.
Intentia was founded in 1984 and serves over 3,000 customer sites in some 40 countries around the world. Our business solutions currently comprise enterprise management, supplier relationship management, customer relationship management, supply chain management, value chain collaboration, enterprise performance management and workplace management.
Intentia is a public company traded on the Stockholm Stock Exchange (XSSE) under the symbol INT B. Visit Intentia's Web site at www.intentia.com
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