Computer system outage at Spirit AeroSystems affects operations

Spirit AeroSystems’ computer system is out, which has affected operations, the company confirmed.

“We are actively working business continuity plans,” Ken Evans, Spirit’s spokesman, said in a statement.

Production continues.

“We remain focused on delivering to our customers and have a proven track record of meeting our commitments,” Evans said.

Evans said he didn’t think shipments had had to be postponed.

The outage is disrupting operations through the company, such as in purchasing and planning and other functions, said BJ Moore, Society of Professional of Engineering Employees in Aerospace contract administrator.

Union members have called into the SPEEA office saying the SAP operations are down and production is being affected, he said. SAP is a specialized enterprise software system.

“It’s big, and it’s putting a big crunch on Spirit,” Moore said.

The SAP system “controls all the buying and pretty much everything that goes on out there,” Moore said.

Spirit will continue to make parts.

“But I don’t know how they’re going to do delivery without the paperwork,” Moore said. “They might be able to do it manually and print out some paperwork.”

That’s how it was done years ago, he said.

“I know they’ve got IT (information technology) on high alert, figuring out how to do their work-arounds,” Moore said. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take to get it up or what caused it to go out.”

This story was originally published November 5, 2014 at 4:47 PM with the headline "Computer system outage at Spirit AeroSystems affects operations."