Infor, a leading provider of business application software serving more than 70,000 customers, today announced that CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, now manages over one million assets, including more than 500,000 accelerator components of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) used in the recent discovery of the Higgs boson particle, with Infor EAM. The Infor application helps with critical traceability, radiation compliance, service level and preventative maintenance issues at the leading research facility.

"When your assets are as unique as those at CERN, this demands the highest levels of operational excellence including world class capabilities for mobile asset management, personnel security access, complex compliance requirements and demands for secure data at all times," said Charles Phillips, CEO of Infor. "Nowhere is this more critical than with the LHC particle accelerator, which recently hit the headlines with the new Higgs boson particle discovery that is set to change our understanding of the universe. Infor is very proud to partner with CERN in this effort."

With more than a million pieces of equipment to manage, in addition to internal personnel, CERN uses approximately 50 external service providers. Service agreements include fixed fee and performance obligation contracts, task or component based agreements and actual time basis contracts. This variety of contracts and service levels means that every equipment item and maintenance task must be traced comprehensively from request to completion.

The objective is not only to improve the anticipation of problems and malfunctions, but also to be able to meet commitments made to each service provider and to optimize costs. Much of CERN's infrastructure maintenance activities, including caretaking, roads, heating and cooling facilities, gardens and security, as well as part of its scientific instrumentation activity (including the particle accelerators), are all managed using Infor EAM.

Infor EAM generates more than 180,000 work orders per year, draws up preventative maintenance tasks, provides stock control functionality and organizes maintenance and inspection schedules.

For the scientific instruments, Infor EAM has become the heart of a manufacturing control system that enables CERN staff to view a complete history breakdown for each item.

Infor EAM has recently been interfaced with an ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library) service desk tool, which provides all users with a single point of contact, whatever type of maintenance problem has to be dealt with. This enabled more than 10,000 input tickets and maintenance orders to be catalogued in Infor EAM for the first six months of 2012.

In addition, a maintenance order management platform for mobile personnel went live at the beginning of 2012 while an "EAM Light" data access application over the Web is in final development. Every user will have the option to adapt it to its own working environment, based on a unique and secure data foundation.

A radioactive material traceability project is currently being developed so that equipment which requires closer monitoring can be identified after it has been removed from the largest and most powerful particle accelerator in the world -- the Large Hadron Collider.

For CERN, monitoring the accelerators is one of the most critical areas for anticipating and preventing faults. Pedro Martel, systems engineer, CERN, explained: "This project to monitor radioactive equipment is very important for CERN, as we are obliged by radiation protection rules to keep our inventory of radioactive material up-to-date. This is required for regular reporting to the Swiss and French radiation protection authorities."

Martel also explained the reliance on the Infor system, both now and in the future: "At CERN, maintenance starts as soon as an event has been generated in Infor EAM. If the solution is not available, maintenance cannot be carried out. Only data stored in Infor EAM is considered valid and only data entered into the system can be used for payment. We will continue to work in close collaboration with Infor to benefit from their wide range of functional consulting and training experience."

About CERN

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world's leading laboratory for particle physics. It has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. Romania is a candidate for accession. Israel and Serbia are Associate Members in the pre-stage to Membership. India, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have Observer status.

About Infor

Infor is the third-largest provider of enterprise applications and services, helping 70,000 customers in 194 countries improve operations, drive growth, and quickly adapt to changes in business demands. Infor offers deep industry-specific applications and suites, engineered for speed, using ground-breaking technology that delivers a rich user experience, and flexible deployment options that give customers a choice to run their businesses in the cloud, on-premises, or both. To learn more about Infor, please visit www.infor.com.

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