Infor, a leading provider of business application software serving
more than 70,000 customers, today announced that CERN, the European
Organization for Nuclear Research, now manages over one million
assets, including more than 500,000 accelerator components of the
Large Hadron Collider (LHC) used in the recent discovery of the
Higgs boson particle, with Infor EAM. The Infor application helps
with critical traceability, radiation compliance, service level and
preventative maintenance issues at the leading research facility.
"When your assets are as unique as those at CERN, this demands
the highest levels of operational excellence including world class
capabilities for mobile asset management, personnel security
access, complex compliance requirements and demands for secure data
at all times," said Charles Phillips, CEO of Infor. "Nowhere is
this more critical than with the LHC particle accelerator, which
recently hit the headlines with the new Higgs boson particle
discovery that is set to change our understanding of the universe.
Infor is very proud to partner with CERN in this effort."
With more than a million pieces of equipment to manage, in
addition to internal personnel, CERN uses approximately 50 external
service providers. Service agreements include fixed fee and
performance obligation contracts, task or component based
agreements and actual time basis contracts. This variety of
contracts and service levels means that every equipment item and
maintenance task must be traced comprehensively from request to
completion.
The objective is not only to improve the anticipation of
problems and malfunctions, but also to be able to meet commitments
made to each service provider and to optimize costs. Much of CERN's
infrastructure maintenance activities, including caretaking, roads,
heating and cooling facilities, gardens and security, as well as
part of its scientific instrumentation activity (including the
particle accelerators), are all managed using Infor EAM.
Infor EAM generates more than 180,000 work orders per year,
draws up preventative maintenance tasks, provides stock control
functionality and organizes maintenance and inspection
schedules.
For the scientific instruments, Infor EAM has become the heart
of a manufacturing control system that enables CERN staff to view a
complete history breakdown for each item.
Infor EAM has recently been interfaced with an ITIL (Information
Technology Infrastructure Library) service desk tool, which
provides all users with a single point of contact, whatever type of
maintenance problem has to be dealt with. This enabled more than
10,000 input tickets and maintenance orders to be catalogued in
Infor EAM for the first six months of 2012.
In addition, a maintenance order management platform for mobile
personnel went live at the beginning of 2012 while an "EAM Light"
data access application over the Web is in final development. Every
user will have the option to adapt it to its own working
environment, based on a unique and secure data foundation.
A radioactive material traceability project is currently being
developed so that equipment which requires closer monitoring can be
identified after it has been removed from the largest and most
powerful particle accelerator in the world -- the Large Hadron
Collider.
For CERN, monitoring the accelerators is one of the most
critical areas for anticipating and preventing faults. Pedro
Martel, systems engineer, CERN, explained: "This project to monitor
radioactive equipment is very important for CERN, as we are obliged
by radiation protection rules to keep our inventory of radioactive
material up-to-date. This is required for regular reporting to the
Swiss and French radiation protection authorities."
Martel also explained the reliance on the Infor system, both now
and in the future: "At CERN, maintenance starts as soon as an event
has been generated in Infor EAM. If the solution is not available,
maintenance cannot be carried out. Only data stored in Infor EAM is
considered valid and only data entered into the system can be used
for payment. We will continue to work in close collaboration with
Infor to benefit from their wide range of functional consulting and
training experience."
About CERN
CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the
world's leading laboratory for particle physics. It has its
headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria,
Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France,
Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland,
Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United
Kingdom. Romania is a candidate for accession. Israel and Serbia
are Associate Members in the pre-stage to Membership. India, Japan,
the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the
European Commission and UNESCO have Observer status.
About Infor
Infor is the third-largest provider of enterprise applications
and services, helping 70,000 customers in 194 countries improve
operations, drive growth, and quickly adapt to changes in business
demands. Infor offers deep industry-specific applications and
suites, engineered for speed, using ground-breaking technology that
delivers a rich user experience, and flexible deployment options
that give customers a choice to run their businesses in the cloud,
on-premises, or both. To learn more about Infor, please visit
www.infor.com.
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