Software Magnate Flies Into Maintenance

Already supplying airlines and airports around the world-including CAAC of China-Oracle Corp. is about to go fully live with its first database software developed for the maintenance, repair and overhaul industry.

"We're pretty much the standard in airports and airlines. Now we have the only suite of software that can maintain tremendously complex equipment like airframes and jet engines," Larry Ellison, chairman and CEO of Oracle Corp. told Show News. "I am sure this will become the standard in the defense and aerospace industries."

The $7-billion-revenue company has two major businesses: to provide the lowest cost information technology infrastructure through the use of databases and access to them through Internet technology; and to provide business and competitive advantage through high-value applications.

Oracle has worked for the last two years with GE Aircraft Engines to develop a database structure that will allow anybody in the company to access any information they are authorized to have, in a common format. Previously, different functions, such as accounting and engineering, would develop their own databases and find themselves unable to exchange even simple information.

Ellison believes that by adopting common databases and making information readily accessible, companies can realize tremendous internal efficiencies, and thus become more profitable while adding to shareholder value.

"This was a cooperative effort with GE's aerospace and defense group engine maintenance side. They are a tough client," Ellison said. "We worked to their specific requirements-they understand their business, and we understand building software very well. You have to work very closely with a major client to be able to develop this solution.

"If we can make GE happy, we can make anybody happy, whether it is jet engines or any other complex item," Ellison said.

Oracle will now offer its MRO suite worldwide.

Ellison's philosophy is to automate as much of the data management and distribution as possible within a whole company, and to manage the system on a centralized basis. In this way the system software is updated and managed by computer professionals, while users' workstations remain relatively simple.

While this sounds like a return to the mainframe/file server and workstation approach, Ellison insists it is fundamentally different. Oracle's system is based on access via Internet technology, which makes it available to end-users worldwide on common Internet architecture.

"In this way all suppliers and customers can log on-the entire supply chain can interact," Ellison said.

Asked about security, he said the Internet architecture is quite applicable to corporate Internet or intranet systems, and can be made as secure as necessary. "GE, for example, has tremendous security," he noted.

He believes that once a company has streamlined its processes in all areas, including purchasing, inventory, and record keeping, information can be made available to suppliers and customers alike as they tap into the database, which is updated centrally.

Oracle's database technology is the first to use image-based technology to allow rapid access to a mass of information.

"There can be a million parts in an airframe, thousands in an engine," Ellison said. "This database will drive down to every screw, every nut and bolt, with its batch number and paperwork-every detail. We can find every single part. There is a huge underlying database for each individual aircraft or engine, and to click through it is not a trivial exercise."

Ellison is himself a pilot. When not riding in the back of his Gulfstream V he flies a Citation. But his real toy is his Marchetti S.11 jet trainer, which he regularly flies out of the 2,600-foot strip by his office in San Carlos, California. "It's a lot of fun," he said.

By John Morris