Infosys and Spirit AeroSystems Announce Winners of the Sixth Annual Global Design Challenge

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Apr 10, 2014, 06:30 ET

BANGALORE, India, and WICHITA, Kansas, April 10, 2014 /PRNewswire/ --

Spirit AeroSystems, Inc., one of the world's largest independent suppliers of commercial airplane assemblies and components along with Infosys, a global leader in consulting, technology and outsourcing, today announced the winners of the Spirit Global Design Challenge (SGDC) 2013. 66 students from thirteen universities across France, India, Russia, Ukraine and the United States participated in this year's challenge. 'Empennage Design', 'Fuselage Design' and 'Internal Structures Design' teams emerged as the winning teams.

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Now in its sixth year, the Global Design Challenge is a unique industry-academia initiative. It encourages engineering students to think "outside-the-box" while also use new technologies to design processes and aviation structures. The program fosters rich international collaboration to groom the aviation innovators of tomorrow.

Highlights:

SGDC stems from the longstanding strategic business engagement, between Infosys and Spirit AeroSystems. It demonstrates a shared vision to attract and develop industry-ready global engineering talent
Infosys and Spirit AeroSystems jointly selected the universities, conducted the workshops and mentoring sessions for participating teams, evaluated and chose the winners
Each team operated as a typical top- tier supplier responsible for the design and manufacturing processes of an aircraft component, such as wing, fuselage and empennage. The teams were expected to further collaborate with one another and deliver a single integrated design for a 150-seat aircraft
Infosys, Spirit AeroSystems and University mentors worked with the students, over a six month period, to help them design their aircraft components. The students also worked with leading aircraft structural designers to gain the knowledge and skills required for their future careers
Students from the participating teams benefitted from the exchange visits organized by the two companies. Infosys hosted a week-long exchange visit to the Infosys Corporate University in Mysore, India which is also one of the world's largest corporate training universities. Spirit AeroSystems organized an exchange visit to the Wichita State University and to the manufacturing facility in Wichita, Kansas, U.S
This is the first year that students from schools in France, Russia and Ukraine participated along with the Russian aerospace company Progresstech

Quotes:

Ramanathan V, Student Participant, Park College of Engineering and Technology, Coimbatore, India

"The warmth and patience of our Infosys and Spirit AeroSystems mentors, coupled with the camaraderie I felt amongst my team mates and fellow participants makes our win secondary to the experience as a whole. All of last semester, I excitedly woke up to emails full of new ideas from my team overseas. I look forward to continuing the friendships I've formed into the next phase of our lives as aerospace engineers."

Sudip Singh, Vice President and Global Head, Engineering Services, Infosys

"In order to stay competitive and be the first to market, manufacturers of complex machines like aircrafts must increasingly rely on the best creative minds from across the world. Initiatives like SGDC play a significant role in bringing together global talent to create game changing solutions for the industry. I congratulate the participants and winners of the Global Design Challenge. I have no doubt that these budding aerospace engineers will create long lasting value for the industry and excel in their chosen careers."

Andy Cobb, vice president of engineering/A350 VP chief engineer, Spirit AeroSystems

"Our challenge began in 2008 when we paired students from Wichita State and the University of Manchester. We are thrilled with where it is today. Past participants have gone on to positions with Spirit and our partnering companies. We extend our congratulations to all of the participants."

Additional Resources

About Spirit AeroSystems

Spirit AeroSystems, with headquarters in Wichita, Kan., USA, is one of the world's largest non-OEM designers and manufacturers of aerostructures for commercial aircraft. In addition to its Wichita and Chanute facilities in Kansas, Spirit has locations in Tulsa and McAlester, Okla.; Kinston, N.C.; Prestwick, Scotland; Preston, England; Subang, Malaysia; and Saint-Nazaire, France. In the U.S., Spirit's core products include fuselages, pylons, nacelles and wing components. Additionally, Spirit provides aftermarket customer support services, including spare parts, maintenance/repair/overhaul, and fleet support services in North America, Europe and Asia. Spirit Europe produces wing components for a host of customers, including Airbus.

About Infosys

Infosys is a global leader in consulting, technology and outsourcing solutions. We enable clients, in more than 30 countries, to stay a step ahead of emerging business trends and outperform the competition. We help them transform and thrive in a changing world by co-creating breakthrough solutions that combine strategic insights and execution excellence.

Visit http://www.infosys.com to see how Infosys (NYSE: INFY), with US$7.4 billion in annual revenues and 158,000+ employees, is Building Tomorrow's Enterprise® today.

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SOURCE Infosys