Plasan Sasa Ltd.

Plasan's armor solutions perform on a large variety of civilian, law enforcement and military vehicles - both wheeled and tracked versions - the world over. Offering cost-effective and life-saving survivability kits, Plasan protects special mission vehicles as well as patrol and reconnaissance vehicles, MRAPs, logistical and transport vehicles, APCs and tactical vehicles.

Through partnerships with global vehicle manufacturers and system integrators, Plasan lends support with a combination of technical expertise, combat-proven technologies and complete ballistic protection capabilities.

User-centric survivability solutions hold top priority in Plasan's personal protection design philosophy. Plasan's customized solutions integrate ergonomic factors, advanced material sciences, human factor engineering, biomechanics, anatomy and anthropometry throughout a comprehensive planning and design process. The end result is a tailored and optimized personal protection product meeting customers' requirements.

Plasan's personal protection solutions are a natural extension of the warfighter's human body and gear. Plasan's product line is tailored to battlefield and asymmetric conflict, law enforcement, peacekeeping, National Guard, Border Patrol and Homeland Security personnel. Today, Plasan is a provider of ballistic solutions (body armor and plate carrier systems) to the IDF's Future Soldier System (FSS) program, as well as those of the U.S. Army and NATO clients.

Plasan's lightweight body armor is based on composite ceramic armor and ballistic fabrics. The Company's solutions are designed for use with MOLLE system components.

Plasan's state-of-the-art solutions meet NIJ level III, IV standards and higher threat levels. Most Plasan solutions are categorized as Technology Readiness Level 9 - the highest - and have an extensive combat-proven track record in numerous operations worldwide.

International ballistic laboratories and ranges inspect and qualify Plasan's products to assure they meet relevant standards while complying with stringent environmental challenges.

Crew survivability is Plasan's first priority when designing Lightweight Armor Airborne Solutions. Plasan understands the value of not only preserving lives but also of safeguarding highly trained aircrews and guaranteeing mission accomplishment.

Plasan's integrated solutions offer outstanding engineering innovations presented by modular, portable or fixed add-on-armor kits. Plasan's installation kits are characterized by a unique, flexible design enabling their use on multiple models of the same aircraft, shipping to remote locations, as well as rapid, on-site, mid-mission installation and on-the-fly repair.

All aspects and stages of a product's design and production are carried out in close cooperation with the customers' needs and requirements. Plasan develops and fields lightweight armor "Cockpit Protection" solutions for aircraft operating in forward battle zones, designed to ensure flight crews and passengers a level of protection assuring their survival, even if the aircraft becomes a combat casualty.

Plasan's airborne armor solutions are designed with the following advantages:

• A complete understanding of the relationship between add-on armor to the aircraft's flight characteristics.
• Engineered lightweight armor solutions designed to provide the maximum protection level possible with the minimum amount of weight.
• Optimizing armoring materials to ensure specified threat levels are met.
• Transferable armor kits that can be moved from one like aircraft to another.

Plasan's Integrated Survivability Solutions are designed INTO the vehicle platform, not onto it. The company's design phase is comprehensive, multi-faceted and interdisciplinary.  It proceeds as follows:

Design Process - integrate customer requirements, military operational experience, armor solution and automotive characteristics into a concept.

Design Target - combine innovation, protection, timing, low weight and manufacturing costs into a TOTAL solution package. Production engineering is involved from the start to guarantee applicability for OEM mass production.

Blast Management Solution - design a complete survivability solution around the vehicle's assets and designated threat levels.

Regulations and Standards - incorporates military and automotive industrial specifications for ergonomic comfort, user safety and vehicular reliability on- and off-road.

Automotive Styling - Plasan's design team pays close attention to all details of the vehicle, reinforcing and complimenting OEM product branding, and help the end-user define its image as perceived in-theater.

Prototype Build- construction of full-scale model vehicles to undergo ballistic and blast testing and a full-scale working vehicle for automotive testing.

Plasan conducts three main forms of prototype builds:

• Full size static models for ergonomic, engineering, and customer appraisals ranging from wooden bucks to exhibition standard concept prototypes.
• Blast bucks - either full or partial vehicle hulls built for the sole purpose of live blast testing.
•  Fully running vehicle prototypes for dynamic vehicle testing, customer appraisals, and engineering development.

Prototype Testing:

• Ballistic threats
• IED and mine blast threats
• Road worthiness
• Maneuverability

Plasan's comprehensive understanding of survivability as well as nuances involved in bringing complex projects rapidly from paper to the battlefield places the Company in a unique position.  The special nature of Plasan's success is its complete, end-to-end control of the product development and manufacturing processes.

From the client's initial request to design a unique platform meeting specific threats, Plasan identifies the possible solution sets, initiate concept development, build prototypes, run complex computerized simulation models, build mock-ups, conduct ballistic and blast tests, test preliminary production runs, ramp-up our global supply chain management system, commence with serial production and finally, set up an Integrated Logistic Supply system for the product's lifecycle. Production engineers are part of the vehicle design process from the start. Upon final prototype approval and a "green light" for serial production, a complete set of engineering Bill of Materials and Production Instructions are drawn up.

The testing of solutions is performed in Plasan's state-of-the-art ballistics laboratory featuring infrastructure for a wide range of munitions and high velocity threats. The Company's collected data of more than 17,000 ballistic tests are an invaluable asset for research, development and traceability.

Coupled with in-house ballistics laboratory, Plasan's R&D specialists perform full-scale blast tests fully equipped to allow whole-system measurements (e.g. gauges, high-speed cameras and Hybrid III test dummies) to verify and calibrate lab tests and simulation modeling predictions. Cooperation with material suppliers, universities and technological institutions worldwide ensure that our armor technologies remain constantly "ahead of the curve".

To optimize survivability solutions, Plasan combines computer generated analyses and simulations with proving ground blast tests. These analyses simulate blast effects on a given vehicle, with or without passengers, and compare the results with industry-defined threshold standards. Real-time calibration data are constantly fed into the simulations, increasing their accuracy and validity.

Virtual product development tools enable Plasan to conduct dynamic analysis of vehicle subsystems and entire vehicles.  Modeling ensures protection from the multiple dynamic loads of all types of blasts, rollovers, and vehicular accidents.

The primary top-level tool for successful program management is the integrated Program Management Plan, which addresses the approach for all phases of the program. The plan addresses the coordinated effort of all Plasan Group organizations which are taking part in the program.

Some key functions, organizations and tools utilized to efficiently implement the plan is as follows:

Production Planning & Control Team  - Every department has a local planner, and the team also has a master planner who coordinates the effort based on the bottom-up planning. The managing and coordination is ongoing and constant.

Schedule Monitoring – The methodology for schedule monitoring is based on the information concentrated and disseminated through the Program control room. This room provides material status and delivery data (generated by ERP) which is updated every few minutes.

 Quality Management – Plasan's Quality System is certified to ISO – 9001:2008. Plasan is an approved supplier for the DoD, IDF and other Armies worldwide. For major subcontractors, Plasan assigns a Quality Point of Contact that maintains ongoing communication with the subcontractor. A source inspection is performed as needed.

Plasan's supply chain strategy is based on several identified key points which are implemented and integrated throughout the program lifecycle:

Superior Operations – All supply chain activities are globally coordinated to leverage best practices and global purchasing power without compromising flexibility.

Wide base of Qualified Global Strategic Material Suppliers and Qualified Subcontracors – By maintaining  multiple sources for all key parts and processes, Plasan's supply chain can ramp or down within a few weeks, as schedules and short term demand may change.

Decentralized Execution – The links in Plasan's supply chain may be dynamically reallocated in the event of change in delivery schedule or unanticipated difficulties with a supplier / subcontractor.

Strong Supplier-Partner Relationships – Supply chain management processes work to maintain suppliers who are involved and aligned with the tasks at hand.

Metrics – Quantifiable data maintains alignment with Business Plan and Customer Requirements . Tracking systems (described below) provide real time updates for SCM functional deliverables. KPIs for SCM relative to speed, award wins and ROI.