Customer stories


Pratt & Whitney

Busy distribution center for a world leader in the manufacture of aircraft engines keeps data organized with FileMaker Pro

Few industries maintain more stringent standards than those involved in the manufacture of aircraft engines. Every part, every component, every design is subject to layer after layer of rigorous inspection. That's an enormous amount of data to collect, collate, sort, and organized, and for a key facility of Pratt & Whitney, there's plenty of call for the data management power of FileMaker Pro, the award-winning database software application from FileMaker, Inc.


Business challenges

Located in Narita, at Japan's primary international airport, Pratt & Whitney's Asian Distribution Center is a hub for an essential element of the manufacturing process. "We're one of the three major manufacturers of jet engines for large airliners," explains General Manager Tad Johnson. "Most of the major airlines of the world are our customers and in order to comply with US Federal Aviation Administration regulations, we're required to perform airworthiness inspections on all engine components before releasing them to our airline customers in this region.”

That inspection process is meticulous, with every step thoroughly documented. And it's a process requiring an extensive database system. "We've been using FileMaker Pro for about eight years,” Tad says. "We chose FileMaker Pro for its quick development time and for the ability of end users to make simple modifications to the database structures.”


Successful solution

FileMaker Pro is at the heart of many functions at the Asian Distribution Center. "We use FileMaker Pro to run all aspects of the center,” Tad continues. "These include everything from the process of producing airworthiness certificates to jobs like personnel administration. Altogether we use about 30 databases, with two workgroups and eleven users, and some of our databases contain over 27,000 records.”


"FileMaker Pro 7 supports Unicode and also includes all the calculation functions and special features found in previous Japanese versions. This allows us to develop solutions for use all over the world with multi-lingual interfaces. In our own case, we develop databases for use by both Japanese and English users, so FileMaker Pro 7 will make our development process much more efficient."

Tad Johnson, general manager, Asian Distribution Center, Pratt & Whitney


Customer benefits

Because the center serves the Asian market, language issues are always an important consideration. And it's because of these concerns that Tad is excited about the new FileMaker Pro 7. "In previous versions of FileMaker Pro, to produce databases that handled Japanese, Chinese, or Korean, you had to use a language compatible version of FileMaker Pro,” he explains. " Not only were Japanese version files impossible to open with the English version, you couldn't develop in the English version databases with a Japanese interface.”

But FileMaker Pro 7 surmounts that barrier. "FileMaker Pro 7 supports Unicode and also includes all the calculation functions and special features found in previous Japanese versions,” Tad continues. "This allows us to develop solutions for use all over the world with multi-lingual interfaces. In our own case, we develop databases for use by both Japanese and English users, so FileMaker Pro 7 will make our development process much more efficient.”

FileMaker Pro 7 shines in such a specialized setting, but Tad also appreciates functions of the new version that will be valuable for any developer. "The enhanced relational features of FileMaker Pro 7 make it much easier for beginning developers to understand relational design,” he predicts, "and will help them quickly put the relational power of FileMaker Pro to work. It also makes database design analysis much easier, and the built-in Relationships Graph makes it easy for parttime developers to build relational databases without formal training in database design.”



Contact information

Contact Info for Customer:

Tad Johnson
General Manager
Pratt & Whitney Asian Distribution Center
+81 (478) 70-3030


Filemaker Contact:

Kevin Mallon
Public Relations Manager
FileMaker Inc.
408-987-7227
kevin_mallon@filemaker.com
http://www.filemaker.com


Overview
  • Asian Distribution Center for a leading manufacturer of jet aircraft engines
  • Based at Japan's Narita International Airport
  • Over 8,000 employees worldwide
Industry
  • Aerospace/Defense
  • Information Technology
  • Medium-Large Business
Solutions
  • Manage US Federal Aviation Administration compliance regulations
  • Produce airworthiness certificates
  • Manage personnel administration
  • Share data across multi lingual databases all over the world
  • Manage airworthiness inspection process
Benefits
  • Improved accuracy of information to US Federal Aviation Administration
  • Increased efficiency of inspection process
  • Facilitated worldwide data exchange
  • Reduced development time by being able to develop applications on the spot with inhouse staff
  • Increased efficiency of personnel administrative functions