Dassault Systèmes

Troy, Michigan (USA), April 3, 2002 - DELMIA Corp., a Dassault Systemes company (Nasdaq:DASTY; Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA) announced today that the European Commission is providing funding for a collaborative research project called NOMAD under the aegis of its Framework V Competitive and Sustainable Growth Program (G1RD-CT-2000-00461), Autonomous Manufacture of Large Steel Fabrications.  The project is aimed at the development of technologies to replace the assembly line-based approach to welded fabrication. <br/>

The technology will allow “constraints free” manufacturing in which the welding process is taken to the part (as in manual welding) rather than the part moving along an assembly line from one process to the next (as in dedicated robot welding).  This concept means that fabricators will not only be able to cope with different product designs efficiently, but will also be able to cope with varying demand by using more or fewer robots as appropriate.  The proposed system will result in the removal of human operators from hazardous fabrication environments, also making it easier to contain pollution. <br/>

Caterpillar Belgium SA helped to initiate the project, which began in earnest earlier this year.  Keith Herman, a Senior Research and Development Engineer at Caterpillar is the Project Technical Co-ordinator.  He explained: “In the past, our customers were happy with standard products, but now they demand customised parts that are designed specifically to match their applications.  We, like other companies, are finding it difficult to deliver these customised parts quickly and economically, with current fabrication techniques.  At the moment, the robotic welding of customised parts is inefficient.  There has also been a reduction in the number of skilled and trained welders capable of producing these products manually.”

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Finnish-based Delfoi, a partner company of DELMIA, and a specialist advanced manufacturing simulation company, is part of a European team that makes up NOMAD.  Delfoi and the NOMAD team will be utilising DELMIA’s IGRIP as a key tool to enable the automation of robotic weld programming.  Welding information will be obtained from the CAD system simultaneously with a “weld planner”, which will be especially developed as part of the project.  The position and orientation of the part to be welded will be fed into IGRIP via sensor systems that are also being developed within the project.  With this information, a model of the cell will automatically be created in IGRIP, with the automatic robot programming to follow. <br/>

The other partners within the NOMAD project include Robosoft SA (France), TWI Ltd (UK), Fraunhofer IFF (Germany), Reis Robotics Robotics (Germany),  ESAB AB (Sweden), and Nusteel Structures Ltd (UK). <br/>

It is envisaged that the resulting system will be an automated fabrication cell capable of efficient and reduced cost production of unique, customised products.  Initially, NOMAD will concentrate on large sized steel structures but it is expected that dissemination to other industry sectors will occur before the end of the decade.<br/>

Heikki Aalto, Executive Vice President of Delfoi, commented: “NOMAD will cut costs by automating the arc welding process, negating the need for expensive jigs, as the sensor systems will identify a part and then the robot will apply the correct welding program even when they are truly customised, unique products.  The technology should also be capable of re-vitalising traditional fabrication industries in Europe - construction, shipbuilding, off highway vehicles, structural fabrication, military vehicles and heavy handling equipment.”

Delfoi develops, markets and supports e-manufacturing solutions and related consulting and integration services which enable companies to speed up and streamline their product creation and product delivery processes. With Delfoi products and services, companies can integrate and automate engineering to execution process, which will lead to shorter time-to-market, faster ramp-up, more agile demand adaptation and - most importantly - better profitability. Delfoi has during it's 10 years of partnership with DELMIA Corporation gained the market leading position in manufacturing simulation solutions and services in the Nordic countries. Delfoi's customers typically operate in the electronics, automotive, metal and production automation industries.

Information about Delfoi is available at - http://www.delfoi.com

DELMIA provides comprehensive software solutions and expertise for customers to virtually create, monitor and control agile, distributed manufacturing processes geared towards Build-to-Order and Lean Production practices. The DELMIA software suite contains alphanumeric and 3D-driven process planning, standard time measurement applications, human being simulations, robot and machine tool simulation as well as solutions for layout generation and material flow simulation. Such software allows development, screen-based simulation and optimization of manufacturing processes for single device, work cell, production line, and factory material flow up to Extended Enterprise production flow. Applications range from concept development phase to shop floor implementation and production management. The DELMIA range of simulation software packages integrates behavior models to be used in simulation, analysis, programming and control applications. DELMIA offers state-of-the-art technology to design factories on-screen, before actually building them. DELMIA serves industry segments where continuous transformation and optimization of the manufacturing processes are critical such as Automotive, Aerospace, Fabrication and Assembly, Electrical and Electronics, Consumer Goods, Plant and Shipbuilding. DELMIA constitutes the core offering for Digital Manufacturing and Production, serving the product life cycle. DELMIA solutions are interoperable with major CAD, PDM and ERP systems.

Information about DELMIA is available at - http://www.delmia.com

Dassault Systemes is the premier global software developer for the CAD/CAM/CAE/PLM market, providing companies with e-business solutions to implement their digital enterprise, thus creating and simulating the entire product life cycle from initial concept to product in service. CATIA, ENOVIA and DELMIA Solutions support industry-specific business processes to help unleash creativity and innovation, reduce development cycle time, improve quality, competitiveness and shareholder value: CATIA supports the digital product definition and simulation, DELMIA provides solutions to define and simulate lean digital manufacturing processes and ENOVIA delivers enterprise solutions that manage a comprehensive, collaborative and distributed model of the digital product, processes and resources. The combined integration creates the Digital Product life cycle Pipeline, supporting reuse of corporate knowledge. SolidWorks and SmarTeam Corp., as Dassault Systemes companies, offer respectively 3D design-centric and collaborative PDM software solutions based on Windows and the Internet. Spatial, also part of the Dassault Systemes family, is a market-leading provider of world-class 3D software components and services (for 3D modeling, visualization, and interoperability) to meet the requirements of 3D in Internet-based e-commerce and B2B applications.

Information about Dassault Systemes is available at - http://www.3ds.com

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