IBM has struck a five-year, multi-million dollar IT outsourcing agreement with Melbourne-based automotive airconditioning systems manufacturer,  Air International Thermal Systems' (AITS).

Under the agreement IBM will analyse, design, build and manage AITS's entire business applications and IT environment.

In addition to consulting services, the agreement encompasses IT outsourcing and e-business hosting services, applications implementation, IBM software, IBM eServer technology and communications infrastructure development. IBM signed the agreement with AITS against competitors like HP, Infosys, Tata, and EDS.

After being established as a Joint Venture between JP Morgan Partners and Futuris, AITS wanted to build a new business applications and technology infrastructure to support its plans for rapid expansion. AITS uses a manufacturing model where most components are manufactured by sub-contractors overseas, while the company's operations in Australia focuses mainly on the final assembly of components, product innovation, marketing and sales. The supply chain includes facilities in Australia, China and the United States.

Michael Foreshew, AITS' general manager for ITS, said, "We needed a partner that could both link and transform our enterprise applications and IT infrastructure in Australia, China and the US.

"IBM business consultants demonstrated a detailed understanding of the automotive components industry, our unique business model and existing business issues, and showed us how we could use technology to work more efficiently," he said.

Kevin Killey, Automotive Industry Leader, IBM Business Consulting Services said that IBM's automotive practice understands the business needs of component manufacturers such as Air International Thermal Systems.

IBM will design and integrate an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) technology platform to manage AITS' manufacturing and business processes, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) software, Product Data Management (PDM) solution and a Knowledge Management (KM) system based on IBM Workplace Services Express. These applications will underpin a wide range of AITS'
business processes, from product design, marketing and sales, manufacturing, supply chain, finance and HR to technology. IBM will host these business applications at its secure data centre in Sydney.

In addition, IBM Global Services will design and build AITS's communications infrastructure, which includes a wide-area network linking the company's offices in Australia, China and the US. IBM will provide a 24-hour multilingual IT helpdesk support from its Cumberland Forest call centre.

The solution currently being deployed in the Australian offices will be used as a template and rolled out across AITS's operations in China and the US. {moscomment}