Draken is a supplier of maintenance and management services to defence forces

Ramco Systems, a Chennai-based provider of enterprise software, said it won a contract to supply operations management software to Draken International, a key US defence contractor which provides aircraft maintenance and management services to the US Department of Defence.

The exact size of the deal was not revealed, but Ramco said the US company will enable modules such as Maintenance, Supply Chain Management, Flight Operations, Safety & Quality, indicating that the deal is quite a sizeable one, at least in terms of its breadth.

The deal is also important in terms of raising the profile of Ramco Systems, as software used in the US defence industry to be subjected to multiple safety and quality checks.

“Securing the trust of the top four ADAIR operators in the U.S.A is a landmark achievement, and we are thrilled to achieve this within a short time of entering the Defense Asset Management segment,” Ramco Systems’ CEO Virender Aggarwal.

Bill Tart, COO, Draken International, said the deal will help Draken to provide its Department of Defense customers “with the best value”.

“As we looked at our long-term requirements, we identified the need for a tool that could deal with the complexity of multiple aircraft fleets, geographically dispersed sites, future government compliance issues, large workforce quality and training tracking – all in a package which minimized workload and could scale with our global expansion plans. No easy task for a next generation Aviation MRO software package,” he said.

He said Ramco System’s aviation suite was “the solution to all our requirements”.

“The one stop solution, offering capabilities to address the demanding requirements of the Defense segment, will help us achieve and maintain high mission readiness befitting our customers.”

Ramco said its software will provide a holistic overview of entire operations with its real-time dashboards and analytics, which will help Draken’s tactical fighter aircraft achieve a higher mission readiness rate.

“In addition, with its digital enablers like state-of-the-art mobile apps, digital task cards, HUBs, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Dashboards, Ramco will also help Draken in its overall digital transformation journey, thus realizing paperless operations, improving process efficiencies, and reducing costs,” the Indian company said.

Ramco Systems is one of the few Indian IT firms that chose to go the product route instead of offering services like its bigger peers, Infosys, TCS and Wipro.

The company invested in developing its own intellectual property and branding, and has, slowly but surely, emerged as a reliable and cost-effective supplier of solutions to various industries across the world, including logistics, aviation and finance.

Ramco Systems is chaired by P R Venketrama Raja, the grandson of Ramasamy Raja, who turned around the fortunes of Rajapalayam area in Tamil Nadu by starting a textile mill around 80 years ago.

The group, under the leadership of three generations, has diversified into several sectors, including cement, software, construction materials and logistics.

Ramco Systems’ aviation software is used by over 24,000 users to manage more than 4,000 aircraft globally, according to the company.