UUDS Aero

Every modern aircraft cabin design is the result of hundreds of carefully balanced decisions – each to ensure that passengers travel safely, in optimal comfort and in accordance with stringent industry regulations.

For more than four decades, France-based UUDS Aero has mastered the art of making these decisions. It designs, manufactures and delivers cabin interiors for both business and commercial air travel, including crew rest modules, galleys and more. It also provides maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) services, as well as type certification, for various aircraft components, and holds approvals from multiple aviation authorities.

“Our clients are airlines with a single goal: to deliver the best possible cabin experiences to their passengers,” said Julian Ehrhard, CEO at UUDS Aero. “Everything we develop is built with that goal in mind – combining certification expertise and innovation to create complete, passenger-focused solutions. We also serve prime contractors and OEMs, who rely on us for our industrial performance, quality compliance, on-time delivery and mastery of complex manufacturing processes.” 

Today, UUDS Aero serves more than 280 customers worldwide and has established strategic partnerships with multiple aviation companies. Its recent acquisition of Satys Cabin has bolstered its business further, enabling it to add composite manufacturing capabilities and nearly 200 additional engineers to its global operation.

To keep pace with the industry’s demands, the company embarked on a comprehensive digital transformation journey in 2020, when it implemented Dassault Systèmes’ solutions for integrated design, certification and manufacturing. 

European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) approvals for design (DOA), production (POA), and maintenance (MOA) require complete traceability of processes and information. Data scattered across different systems makes transmitting the necessary information to the approval authorities time-consuming. Tracking updates or routine revisions of 3D models during the certification and validation process is becoming increasingly complex and requires effective coordination of operations.

In this context, UUDS required a new way of working – one that could connect everyone in the value chain and give them access to the same real-time information so that they could manage product data across the entire product lifecycle.

“In our industry, a good design is only valid when it is certifiable,” Ehrhard said. “We therefore needed a state-of-the-art digital solution that allow us to design, certify and communicate effectively with our clients and across our supply chain. We also needed more control over quality, deadlines and costs, while minimizing our dependence on third parties.” 

Throughout its digital transformation journey, UUDS wanted to exploit the full potential of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the cloud to optimize its product lifecycle management (PLM) processes. The centralization of data within the platform was a key lever for reducing complexity and reinforcing the traceability of decisions taken throughout projects. This facilitates better team synchronization and fluid communication – essential to ensure efficient project management, while guaranteeing clear traceability of decisions.

“Moving to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform offered us a complete business information system capable of connecting our entire value chain and helping us scale our business,” Ehrhard said. “We’re not just talking about implementing a simple design or calculation tool; we’re talking about a system that supports our entire value chain and that is up to the latest industry standards. So, we felt that the 3DEXPERIENCE platform would be the gamechanger.”

UUDS Aero partnered with MBA Innovation, a consultancy founded by former Dassault Systèmes experts. MBA Innovation brought both deep technical knowledge of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform and a structured approach to end-to-end change management, helping to standardize processes and ensure the implementation was aligned with UUDS Aero’s operational and strategic goals.

“The most intense part was changing mindsets,” Ehrhard said. “We needed to help designers and engineers adapt to a totally new way of working. MBA Innovation supports us with excellent project management and technical expertise. They’ve helped us roll out new functionalities and modules progressively, always keeping the human factor at the center of the transformation.”

Today, the 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the cloud forms the digital backbone of UUDS Aero’s entire operation.

CATIA is used by designers and engineers to develop complex cabin components with full traceability. This data is then published to the platform and accessed via ENOVIA to facilitate coordination across internal and external teams. This is done through collaborative spaces created for each project, with secure access granted for partners and suppliers for smooth and effective communication and cooperation.

Iterop’s business process management capabilities add further value by automating UUDS Aero’s 16-step validation process. Using the 3DEXPERIENCE platform’s out-of-the-box data model, eight manual steps have been removed, significantly reducing the number of clicks required to perform tasks, lowering the chance of errors and ensuring process consistency across sites.

The result is a fully connected ecosystem where data flows seamlessly among disciplines and geographies. The secure cloud-based infrastructure ensures that all employees, wherever they are in the world, can access the same information – and in real time.

“The impact on operational performance has been significant: processing times have been reduced from two weeks to just two days,” Ehrhard said. “We can now manage the entire lifecycle of our products – from client specifications to supply chain interactions – within a single environment.”

Almost everyone in the company uses the platform today. Any company employee, at any level, can access it to find information about products. “It even gives us full access to the data that feeds our innovation brainstorming sessions,” Ehrhard said.

The platform’s connectivity not only improves efficiency but ensures compliance. Certification requirements are now integrated into daily workflows and, with greater automation capabilities.

“We have halved the number of manual steps required to meet certification requirements, improving accuracy and freeing engineers to focus on higher-value work,” Ehrhard said. “We can now meet industry standards such as the French Aviation Authority’s Aero Excellence program. This voluntary improvement initiative aims to establish a common framework for the sector, encouraging digital continuity, process standardization and supply chain collaboration.”

For UUDS Aero, adopting the Dassault Systèmes’ platform was the foundation for its continued innovation. With that in mind, the company is now exploring new capabilities that go beyond design and certification.

“Flexibility and innovation – these are the key words,” Ehrhard said. “The 3DEXPERIENCE platform supports us both in structuring our industrial capabilities and in driving innovation to improve our operational performance. It’s the backbone of our transformation and the foundation for the next chapter of our growth.”

Artificial intelligence is a key area of interest, particularly for automating the conversion of 3D product designs into manufacturing and assembly plans. The company is also working on extending its PLM capabilities with ENOVIA to cover the entire lifespan of its products – which can often be in service for as long as fifteen years – to ensure long-term configuration control and traceability.

“Our development plan is always evolving,” Ehrhard said. “We want to expand the use of the platform and its functionalities. Dassault Systèmes and MBA Innovation share this dynamic of constant improvement, and that’s what keeps us moving forward.”