Meet Sophy
aircraftinteriorsinternational.com
152 MARCH 2020
WELLNESS
MONUMENTS
The Ultraflex concept monument configuration revealed by
AIM Altitude in 2019 was a real talking point, offering areas
for exercise, viewing sports and private dining. For 2020, the
design has been reimagined and reinvented to create ReFlex,
a configuration designed for the Door 2 entrance area on
wide-bodied aircraft.
AIM Altitude describes ReFlex as a “credible product offering”
and it builds on the themes of wellness, with areas designed to
combat the adverse effects of long-haul flights. Multi-use units
provide flexibility for airlines, allowing them to offer creative
welcoming spaces, healthy food and drink service options, and
areas for group or individual activities.
Sophy is a new smart trolley system designed to control
and optimise catering operations, offering more than just
tracking trolley status and performance. Developed by
Safran Cabin, Sophy provides airlines with a ‘helicopter
view’ of day-to-day operations, offering insights on main
processes and the main parts of a trolley’s journey,
including handovers, cleaning, maintenance, in-flight
service rounds and more.
The slimline Sophy device in a trolley can collect, share
and communicate real-time, accurate data with other
Sophy-activated equipment through a ‘mesh network’,
providing insights for airline operators.
According to Safran Cabin, a trolley equipped with
Sophy can save catering costs by preventing and
minimising inefficiencies caused by mishandling,
misplacement or misinformation, and remove the risk
of a trolley being left behind during a turnaround or
while at a catering facility.
Sophy can be integrated in existing and new trolley
fleets, and is watertight and temperature resistant, as
well as being compliant with worldwide regulations.
Safran Cabin performed catering and on board
research for more than five years prior to the creation
of Sophy, and partnered with Undagrid, an Internet of
Things (IoT) specialist, to develop the backbone of Sophy’s
smart technology. This IoT development enables Sophyequipped
trolleys to have connectivity with Safran Cabin’s
Smart Galley, portable devices, and other systems
throughout the catering process. More than 20 airlines
have also provided input into the development process
and the product is now ready to launch into market.
DIGITAL
END-TO-END SERVICES
The increasing complexity and shortening lifecycles of cabin
products require new types of engineering solutions that can
manage higher speed, volume and complexity. Digitalisation is
already helping many engineering disciplines improve product
performances and reduce costs and time to market. However,
many companies experience operational ‘pain points’ within
their digitalisation initiatives for development and production
phases, and so have not defined a full digital transformation
strategy for their value chain.
Altran is offering a new way to innovate, with a digital
end-to-end product development lifecycle that combines all
relevant data from digital functional models, the digital mockup
and digital twin, and in-service data into one single aircraft
cabin data model to provide the digital operational value at
any stage of the product lifecycle.
During 2020, Altran will demonstrate how digital continuity
can be ensured through the development stages and how data
exchange between models will work in future. The company
plans to share how technologies such as 5G, IoT and robotics,
as well as tools and methods
such as MBSE and Big Data
can be applied to be flexible
for implementing changes
in all phases.
INT ER IOR S I NNOVAT ION cabin design
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