Europe’s Leading Space Company selects Product Lifecycle Management solutions from IBM and Dassault Systemes

Astrium Space Infrastructure reinforces its development program with an IBM e-business infrastructure featuring CATIA and ENOVIAVPM solutions from Dassault Systemes

Bremen, Germany and Paris, France.  13 November, 2001 - The Space Infrastructure business division of ASTRIUM GmbH today announced it has selected IBM and Dassault Systemes (Nasdaq: DASTY; Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA) Product Lifecycle Management solutions, including Dassault Systemes’ ENOVIAVPM solutions at its three design and manufacturing sites. These sites, already up and running with Dassault Systèmes’ CATIA 3D design solutions, are the locations for development for the international space station and are already equipped with CATIA 3D design workstations used by their design teams, which are comprised of over 100 engineers.

ENOVIAVPM, the world’s leading collaborative virtual product development management solution, will allow ASTRIUM to share design information in real time both within the company and with other members of the international space development consortium.

ASTRIUM’s Space Infrastructure business division develops, integrates and operates orbital systems, transportation and propulsion systems, in addition to avionics. This includes comprehensive involvement in the development and construction of the multi-billion dollar International Space Station. ASTRIUM is responsible for the design, development and operation of the Columbus Research Laboratory, Europe’s major contribution to the Space Station.

ASTRIUM uses CATIA 3D virtual reality models to replace costly traditional scale models of complex portions of the International space station. This enables design and production teams to analyze and review construction in a virtual environment.  This information is then shared among the contributors and suppliers of the International Space Station using ENOVIA solutions.

ASTRIUM’s collaboration with IBM goes back to 1990, relying on CATIA 3D design applications to develop their rocket launchers.  With the growing success of this program, they chose to complement CATIA with ENOVIAVPM, allowing collaboration and design sharing of the virtual models created on CATIA.  In 2000, to further support the growing complexity of ASTRIUM’s space projects, including the new Automated Transfer Vehicle (ATV) to be used to deliver up to seven tons of cargo to the Space Station, the company chose to implement a pilot program using ENOVIAVPM enabling the company to control costs and reduce time to market through more efficient design collaboration. This pilot program demonstrated ENOVIAVPM’s ease of use and easy adaptability to ASTRIUM’s existing IT infrastructure and processes.

 

 

Archi Dreyer, Head of Engineering Systems, Information Management, ASTRIUM Space Infrastructure Division, explained, “ During the pilot test, we saw how the features available on ENOVIAVPM, such as Digital Mock-Up, will allow our design team to share an incredible amount of information about our space projects with our partners around the world.  Since we are dealing with brand new concepts that must integrate so much scientific data, design modifications and improvements occur quite often.  With the ENOVIAVPM solution, these design changes will be updated immediately, automatically ensuring that all our extended product development and production teams will be using the same correct data.  To be able to track design changes for projects this complex is key to our success because it allows us to reduce the design and development costs.”  

 

 

Following this successful pilot, ASTRIUM has now begun the rollout of ENOVIAVPM at its primary design and manufacturing locations in Bremen, Munich and the Lampoldshausen Test-Site near Stuttgart.  Once this multi-site configuration is in place, ASTRIUM will then connect its suppliers to the product life cycle through ENOVIAVPM’s distributed collaboration capability.

 

 

Ed Petrozelli, general manager, IBM Product Lifecycle Management, said, “After more than a decade of working together, IBM continues to support ASTRIUM’s dynamic and growing business with technology and expertise we adapt to their specific needs.  This includes workstations, servers, software and services.  For example, IBM Global Services is handling the ENOVIAVPM installation, user training and customization to create further optimize ASTRIUM’s business processes. IBM is quickly reaching its goal to be a one-stop shop for e-business solutions tailored to the extended global enterprise.”