The challenging economic climate of the last year means that it is very important to have an accurate uptodate view of market opportunity. Theorem Solutions has recently completed an in depth study on CAD data exchange in the UK West Midlands Automotive supply chain which has revealed CATIA’s leading position in UK automotive design and manufacturing companies.

The objective of the study was to identify the types and scale of challenges experienced in CAD data exchange amongst the UK West Midlands Automotive Suppliers. This detail is important to Theorem in order to ensure the development and supply of the ideal interoperability technology to meet the current and anticipated future needs of this important industry sector.

Whilst the core objectives of the project were to identify CAD data exchange problems the work revealed a great deal of further information, including the mix of CAD systems in place. In this respect the project discovered that CATIA dominates the UK West Midlands automotive supply chain with more than twice the number of installations as the next nearest CAD system. When the number of installed workstations is considered the CATIA dominance is seen to be even greater.

The market research confirmed that data exchange is still a problem for many companies in the automotive sector. CATIA emerges as the most widely used CAD system in the survey and this reinforces Theorem’s commitment to providing CATIA users with ‘best in class’ interoperability solutions.

Do these findings match your experience of automotive supply chains?
Do you have problems with data exchange?

The Theorem Team

What if PLM was as easy as watching a video on YouTube?
People's habits are changing. When they want to find an answer to a question they just log on internet and try to find the right answer. And as it is well said, a picture is as good as 1000 words. That's what people are looking for when they make a search on YouTube; they are trying to find a valuable content. People are looking to content that will provide, fun, tips, facts, tutorials, etc. they don't want another TV ad.
And that's precisely the thing that our partner can provide to their user community. Nice and valuable content that will bring them useful information about their products, tips on how to use it, demo of what the product can do.

One minute of video worth dozens of slides
There are thousands of videos on YouTube. You can find all and everything on it and interact with the authors. But the thing is that sometimes it's hard to find the right content and not all those videos are useful or with high rated interest.
When it comes to put our content on such websites, there is always the fear of not to being fund. Or maybe people are going to find part of our message and it could bring to a misunderstanding. So that's why we've created a PLM MarketPlace channel in order to group all of the content in one single place. 

YouTube is not just for kids! Broadcast your business!
This social media thing is not always easy to understand. What is the value of putting my content on YouTube for example?  Of course it's a great way to get more visibility, but it's also a great way to spread useful information about partner's products and their utilization. 

• End-users aren't lost anymore. There is no need to spend hours in searching for the right videos. They can have a quick and interactive demonstration.
• This way, solution providers can explain what their products can do and how to use it. It's an overview of the product that allows people to understand the real value of solutions.
• Resellers can take a look at products demonstration and understand quickly what they're doing and which value they can give to customers. Also, by putting together those videos in one single place it allows users and resellers to find every solution demonstrations.
  

But the important thing everybody has to keep in mind is "valuable content"! The videos your putting on YouTube has to be useful, interesting, allowing people to interact with you and spread the information.
A video without any sound and/or any text with a low quality, will bring frustration, misunderstanding or people are going to switch to another video because you didn't catch their attention. Those media has to be carefully made, providing the best information in the easiest way to understand it.

Personnally, I found videos made by Creaform, Geometric and Theorem inspiring just because there is a voice explaning the meaning of what you see. What about you, what are your favorites?

Alexandre

After 28 years of successful collaboration, IBM has agreed to fully integrate its PLM Sales Operations to Dassault Systèmes. This is a major step in the history of both companies and will benefit our entire PLM Ecosystem.

In the coming months, 700 employees present in 32 countries will be joining DS teams, bringing their deep industry sales expertise and excellent customer relationships. Consequently, this new alliance will deliver more value than ever to our customers present in 11 industries.

View Bernard Charlès, Dassault Systèmes president and CEO, announcement by clicking on the picture above
We also invite you to have a look at the official press release and communication on 3DPerspectives.

Customers at the heart of the new DS-IBM collaboration

This acquisition will lead to the full integration of 700 highly qualified Sales People bringing their strong knowledge in terms of industrial needs, customers’ strategy and PLM projects. Obviously, they know perfectly the DS portfolio but they have a very good knowledge of our Software, Technology and Services Partners’ solutions.

New opportunities for PLM MarketPlace Solution Providers

What does this announcement mean for the PLM Marketplace? Through this acquisition, PLM Marketplace referenced solution providers will gain exposure within Dassault Systèmes’ expanded sales teams and with large customer accounts.

As announced by Bernard Charles, "We are reaching a new level of customer engagement built on commitment, multi-industry knowledge and high-value solutions for sustainable innovation. Looking forward, the wide adoption of 3D lifelike experience and PLM will require the combination of direct sales, our network of partners and online communities.".

At PLM MarketPlace we welcome this new paradigm!
Stay tuned on this blog to know more about what’s coming…

DS is growing, so will the PLM MarketPlace portfolio available for resellers.

Our Solution Providers know what the new DS-IBM relationship means in terms of business opportunities. The PLM MarketPlace portfolio is expected to grow significantly in the near future. With our 100 Value Added Channel Partners located across the globe, PLM Marketplace gives Dassault Systèmes’ new Direct Sales Force and Value Added Channel Partners a fantastic opportunity to meet all of their customers’ expectations.

Onward PLM MarketPlace Solution Providers to help them face their new challenges!

> Are you as excited as we are? We’d love to hear from you in the comments section!

The PLM MarketPlace Team

When you go for a ride or try a vehicle at a car dealer’s before buying a brand new one, one of the most important parameter is the comfort provided by the seats. There is no more direct contact between people and the machine excepted through the seats. It is also the second thing you can appreciate (or not) after the look of the car. This is why car and car-seats manufacturer must do their utmost to provide the future driver and passengers with the best user experience.

Faurecia needs it, LMS provides it!

Faurecia is Europe leading automotive seating system manufacturer and one of the top three worldwide. The company had two projects on which they had to find an optimal solution. One of them requiring kinematic and load calculations to be performed on a seat height adjuster mechanism controlled by the driver/passenger using a pump lever with a low operating torque for easy actuation and the other one on rear-vehicle storage capacity.

The solutions came thanks to LMS's software LMS Virtual.Lab Motion in which you can simulate the realistic motion and loads of mechanical systems. It permits design engineers to quickly analyze and optimize the real-world behavior of mechanical designs and to guarantee that they perform as expected, before committing to expensive physical prototype testing.

Design process improvement

On their first project Faurecia used the software to create a virtual model of the mechanism by importing data from CAD. LMS Virtual.Lab’s ability to represent non-permanent contact between parts - an important feature since contact plays a critical role in determining friction between so many moving parts. Modeling these contacts in LMS Virtual.Lab Motion lets seat engineers accurately predict normal and tangential forces on these components.

On the other project, Faurecia used LMS’ solutions to study the backrest fold-down capability to increase rear-vehicle storage capacity. Dynamic simulations were also used to study the real-life behavior of the car seat under actual passenger seating conditions. Currently under development, this "Easy Break" function relies on springs at the lever joints to help actuate the seat with minimal applied pressure.

1-2-3 model template for future designs

And that isn't all: thanks to LMS Virtual.Lab Motion, designers will gain a huge amount of time using this fold-down function. They will "just" have to enter key parameters into a simulation template instead of recreating models from scratch each time.

Now when you will seat on a car, you will probably ask yourself what's under it. Maybe you will talk about it to your car seller but I'm not sure they will help… So take advantage of this blogpost to ask your questions to LMS!

> Find out how LMS Virtual.Lab Motion can help you and discover the other solutions of LMS.
> Read the full LMS-Faurecia success story.

Alexandre

Hello from Russia! I have been attending yesterday's PLM Forum in Moscow with about 700 visitors and want to give you a brief and personal report with highlights from my point of view.

We have been exhibiting the PLM MarketPlace and offerings from our Alliance Partners in the exhibition and via a conference presentation. First of all I experienced lots of interest in technical solutions provided by our partners, such as in the field of CFD, composite, data exchange. In this respect, PLM MarketPlace was recognized as good entry point to find those specialized solutions which are required in Russian industry and government-funded projects.

 
Image courtesy of Dimitri Movchan, www.isicad.ru

From the discussions I conclude that PLM is generally seen as the structure which helps enable and organize those projects. People were curious and keen to learn what they can get to leverage their engineering competences to market success.

I was told that social communities are emerging in Russia but already well adopted by professionals. So our offerings to foster community collaboration with our ecosystem and around the PLM MarketPlace were seen as very suitable and powerful to answer customers present and tomorrow’s needs.

Co-exhibitors with me were the VARs Bee Pitron and Hetnet (both connected to the PLM MarketPlace) and also Techprom. Software partner CD-adapco was represented by the Sarov Engineering Center and Technology partner 3Dconnexion had an exhibition booth as well.

Well, time for me to board and fly back to Paris. Obviously, if you are willing to discuss business opportunities with our Russian partners or want to be connected with them, don’t hesitate to contact my folks of the PLM MarketPlace team.

до скорой встречи!*

Michael

*See you soon !

Dear technology enthusiasts,
This Monday and Tuesday (September 28th-29th) is being held in Chicago the 2nd Composites World Expo.
Dassault Systemes is of course well represented, with a booth and several speaking slots. 
One of them, on Tuesday September 29th, is shared with the DS partner Intercim around the theme of Manufacturing Excellence for Composites.
We thought it would be interesting to look at what Intercim offers for Composite Manufacturers through a customer case.

In the wake of the all-new Boeing 787, the first airliner predominantly built from carbon composites, the entire industry is seeing a major shift of the demand.

To put things in perspective, let’s look at the market dynamics. The Industry is gradually transitioning from experimental and low volume productions to massive amounts .
The amount of carbon fibers consumed by the Industry is expected to double over the next 6 years. Are the manufacturers ready for that “bungee” jump?

Reducing costs of composite manufacturing processes while coping with production ramp-ups now becomes strategic. Let’s look at the case of EADS Composites Atlantic, and how difficult it can be to ramp up a composite production.

Wonder what it feels like not being able to deliver when the customer asks for more?

“In the fall of 2006, five years into a major contract for the biweekly delivery of ten types of products (leading edges, rudders...) to be used on aircraft manufacturing, we had slipped dangerously behind schedule in manufacturing and deliveries, up to 6 months late on one product in particular,” recalls Séverine Guitton, Head of Quality & Methods for Composites Atlantic Limited (CAL).
On the most heavily affected leading edge products, the scrap rate had reached 13% and rework hit 28%! However, there was absolutely no logic that could explain this highly irregular defect. All of the manufacturing parameters, constantly checked and rechecked, fit perfectly with the plans.

Once the INTERCIM solution for Composite Manufacturing (Pertinence Suite) was in place, workers began collecting 96 parameters at various stages of the  production process, for each new part that was manufactured. The “Rule Discovery” module from INTERCIM, a patented technology, quickly identified two totally unrelated and until then unsuspected characteristics as directly influencing the recurrent defects. “Rules Discovery enabled us to clearly establish specific rules regarding key parameters, far from any known scientific explanation and most strikingly in total contradiction to all of our intuitions,” underlines Séverine Guitton. Then the workers receive conditional notifications in real time during the execution with the INTERCIM Operations Advisor module, live on the shop floor. “By applying these rules to our normal operating procedures, we immediately reduced the scrap rate from 13% to zero and rework came down from 28% to less than 1%,” she continues.

Want to find out more on INTERCIM’s capabilities for Composite Manufacturers? Please visit www.intercim.com.

Does the Composites Atlantic example inspire you?
And what if that could apply to other industries as well?

Romain Lavault for Intercim and Jacques