Archive notice: This article was originally published on June 28, 2005. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
Adobe has secured a prestigious order for its Acrobat solution: The aviation company Airbus plans to equip 32,000 workstations with Acrobat 7.0 Professional or Acrobat 7.0 Standard during the course of this year. Employees are to use the software for creating PDF documents, collaborating in groups and archiving documents. The aircraft manufacturer also intends to achieve increased document security in this way.
As an internationally operating company, Airbus employs staff in all parts of the world who work with various software applications and file formats. To increase the efficiency of its document-based processes, the company needed a standardised solution that met these specific requirements. With Acrobat 7.0 and Adobe PDF, workgroups will in future be able to exchange and jointly use all documents, regardless of the program with which they were created.
Employees convert documents from any application – including CAD software – into a PDF document. This also enables employees who do not have specialist software installed at their workstation to take part in coordination processes. With Adobe Acrobat 7.0 Professional, Airbus engineers and designers can combine 2D or 3D CAD drawings from the company’s Product Lifecycle Management system (PLM) with other documents such as spreadsheets, technical diagrams and images into a single PDF. Once the PDF has been provided with all necessary security options, it can be exchanged with other members of the workgroup, including customers and partners. Acrobat 7.0 users can use the commenting tools to insert annotations and corrections into this document and then release it. Even users of the free Adobe Reader 7.0 can take part in the coordination and release process: If the PDF document was enabled for this when created in Acrobat 7.0 Professional, the commenting tools can also be used with Adobe Reader 7.0.
