Norwegian Company Signs High Technology Contract with EADS

EPM Technology of Oslo Norway (part of the Jotne Group) has signed an Eurofighter related development contract with EADS Military aircraft for the development of a 3D Archiving Application Software. The purpose of the project is to deploy the next generation of Long-Term Archiving tools and to roll out an end-user application for Digital Archives. It will capitalize on the EADS-Eurofighter "Center of Excellence" within data exchange and sharing capabilities and the recent European aerospace industry (AECMA) joint initiative, EN 9300. The value of the contract is NOK 13.6M (€1.7M). The contract signature was announced on the occasion of this year´s Paris Air Show.

Kjell Bengtsson, a director of EPM Technology stated that “We are extremely pleased with the success of the existing use of EPMs EXPRESS Data Manager™ in the Eurofighter project. This new project will use our technology and the knowledge from EADS to develop the next generation solutions to open up new business opportunities in the Aerospace and Defence industry. EADS, as a demanding customer, is supporting EPM achieving this objective.”
In addition to this contract with EPM, five further development contracts are under implementation with other major Norwegian defence companies. These contracts form part of the Industrial Participation Agreement (IPA) between The Norwegian MoD, Norwegian Ministry for Trade and Industry, Norwegian Companies and the Eurofighter consortium. All of these projects are providing high technology work and provide access not only to specific technologies but also provide access to the wider systems within the Eurofighter Weapon System. This latter aspect is vital in providing Norwegian companies with the capability to support the Norwegian Armed Forces in the future.

In addition, Eurofighter has offered six further contracts to Norway. These would build on the ongoing successful development contracts. If fully funded, this would bring the total amount of the development contracts to some 300 Million NOK. These contracts are purely for development work at this stage, any decision by Norway to purchase Eurofighter, as their F-16 replacement, would attract further contracts to a value to be determined by the Norwegian authorities; possibly up to 100% of the purchase value, currently estimated at between NOK 25 to 40 Billion.

EPM Technology is an innovative software company providing solutions for Industrial Data Management, using Open and Public available standards. EPMT has solutions for the Aerospace, Defence and the Building sectors and provides applications for data modelling; data sharing and knowledge based systems, typically supporting Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) implementations.

The Military Aircraft Business Unit, which is an integrated part of the EADS Defence and Security Systems Division (DS), concentrates all the EADS capabilities in the areas of high-performance combat aircraft, unmanned combat air vehicles (UCAVs), manned mission aircraft and training aircraft and the ground support equipment for these systems.

With revenues of approx. € 5.4 bn in 2004 and roughly 24,000 employees across nine nations, DS forms the defence pole within EADS. It offers integrated systems solutions to the new challenges confronting armed forces and homeland security units. It is active in the areas of military aircraft, missile systems, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) systems with manned and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), battlefield management systems, defence electronics, sensors and avionics, and related services.

EADS is a global leader in aerospace, defence and related services. In 2004, the Group generated revenues of € 31.8 billion and employed a workforce of more than 110,000.

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