EADS Selects ENOVIAVPM for its Military Aircraft Division

The European Aeronautic, Defense and Space Company (EADS), the world's third largest aerospace company, IBM and Dassault Systemes (NASDAQ : DASTY, Bourse de Paris) announced that the EADS Military Aircraft Business Unit (EADS Military Aircraft) has selected ENOVIAvpm

Munich (Germany) and Paris (France) 14 September 2000--The European Aeronautic, Defense and Space Company (EADS), the world's third largest aerospace company, IBM and Dassault Systemes (NASDAQ : DASTY, Bourse de Paris) announced that the EADS Military Aircraft Business Unit (EADS Military Aircraft) has selected ENOVIAVPM as its e-business solution for engineering at its sites in Germany. The agreement includes the purchase of 280 ENOVIAVPM licenses, which EADS Military Aircraft will use to manage the designs of the tens of thousands of parts for the company’s aircraft programs in Germany. EADS Military Aircraft will run ENOVIAVPM on IBM RS/6000™ workstations in conjunction with CATIA Solutions, the aerospace industry’s leading computer-aided design, manufacturing and engineering (CAD/CAM/CAE) software.

EADS Military Aircraft selected ENOVIAVPM for its full integration with CATIA, and for its capabilities in managing highly complex processes with ease, efficiency and speed. These will be essential to the success of the initial project for which EADS Military Aircraft will use ENOVIAVPM: production of the Eurofighter Typhoon, a twin engine, multi-role combat advanced aircraft developed jointly by Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom.

EADS Military Aircraft is responsible for the jet’s center fuselage and the right wing. These highly complex areas accounts for 44 percent of the aircraft, including the center fuselage avionics, hydraulics, fuel system, intake, cooling system, flight control, secondary power system, and gun installations.

Because the center fuselage contains a large number of components compacted into an extremely small space, EADS Military Aircraft engineers will create CATIA 3D digital mockups (DMUs) of all 10,000 parts of the final production units. This will enable the company to save an estimated 20 percent of the time needed for future aircraft development because EADS Military Aircraft engineers can use the DMUs for clash detection and other analysis operations. DMUs will also enable EADS engineers to work efficiently with these models when exchanging fuselage information among company sites within Germany, and among their project partners throughout Europe.

More importantly, however, using 3D digital mockups with ENOVIA will let EADS Military Aircraft manage its CATIA models to improve the design and quality of the fuselage parts. Like many military planes, the Eurofighter will evolve as technology improvements arise. This means that the configuration of the center fuselage may change as much as 50 percent over the 30-year service life of the plane. With ENOVIAVPM, managing these changes will be quick and easy. For example, when a Eurofighter customer requests an avionics upgrade, EADS Military Aircraft engineers, using ENOVIAVPM, can locate the exact configurations and series in only a few minutes, rather than searching for days through physical drawings. Not only will EADS Military Aircraft engineers be able to respond to their customers in a minimum of time, but they will be certain that they have identified all planes in question.

EADS Military Aircraft will also use ENOVIAVPM as the e-business solution for the development of a new light-combat and advanced trainer aircraft, the Mako family. EADS Military Aircraft engineers will design the entire Mako jet in CATIA and manage it in ENOVIAVPM, making it the first military airplane that is 100 percent digital. EADS Military Aircraft estimates that using CATIA and ENOVIAVPM through all disciplines and stages of the jet’s life cycle will improve efficiency and productivity, and reduce development time from 10 years to 2 years.

Explained Dr.-Ing. Gerd Berchtold, EADS Military Aircraft senior manager of aircraft equipment design, "ENOVIAVPM is the perfect tool for our aircraft programs. It turns our CATIA digital mockups into living models—the DMU is identical to the manufactured jet. And, it gives our designers a high degree of freedom within our pre-established rules, to find creative solutions that best meet our customers’ needs."

Scott Hopkins, vice president digital enterprise sales, IBM Product Lifecycle Management, commented, "EADS Military Aircraft’s vote of confidence confirms IBM’s leading role in helping the aerospace industry deliver the best possible products to customers."

Said Joel Lemke, president of ENOVIA Corporation, "The expanded use of our solutions within EADS Military Aircraft to include ENOVIAVPM on these very critical military projects is a clear testimony to the value that ENOVIA represents, as well as to the breadth of capability that ENOVIA provides in support of sophisticated, distributed product development. We are pleased to be playing an expanded role in support of the Eurofighter program, and in contributing to the achievement of EADS Military Aircraft’s aggressive goals for reduction in development cycle time."

ENOVIAVPM is part of the ENOVIA Portfolio, a set of solutions that make manufacturers more competitive by helping them manage electronically all aspects of the product life cycle. CATIA Solutions is the world’s leading CAD/CAM/CAE software. Dassault Systemes develops ENOVIAVPM and CATIA; IBM’s Engineering Solutions business unit and IBM Business Partners worldwide market, sell and support them.