Knapheide Hauls Home Efficiency Gains With Dassault Systèmes PLM

Leading Maker of Truck Bodies Uses ENOVIA SmarTeam to Cut Engineering Change Times by 50% and Increase Design Re-use

Charlotte, N.C., April 16, 2007 — Dassault Systèmes (DS) (Nasdaq: DASTY; Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA), a world leader in 3D and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions, announced that Knapheide Manufacturing Company, a leading designer and manufacturer of steel service truck bodies and platform/stake style truck bodies, has deployed ENOVIA SmarTeam to optimally manage its product information and development processes, including SolidWorks design data.

“ENOVIA SmarTeam has reduced our engineering change order times by 50%, partly through improved access to design data and total visibility into any engineering change order (ECO) by any department at any time,” said Chris Weiss, vice president of engineering at Knapheide. “To maintain our leadership position, we are focused on new product development and engineering. It was critical that we update our manual workflow approach -- our ECOs were taking up to two weeks.”

Knapheide now uses ENOVIA SmarTeam to manage design revisions, bills of material, engineering change orders, and process control, and to foster collaboration across design teams and projects through workflows. Using SmarTeam, Knapheide has improved its ability to capture, control, reuse and prevent duplication of its extremely high volume of design data -- more than 250,000 production drawings.

“Knapheide's success highlights ENOVIA SmarTeam’s strength as a flexible and cost-effective multi-CAD PLM solution for mid-sized companies in the automotive value chain," said Alex Zeltcer, general manager, ENOVIA SmarTeam. “By providing both rapid value and the ability to expand gradually toward an overall PLM solution, ENOVIA SmarTeam helps companies like Knapheide improve productivity and innovation, and gain other benefits that maintain their leadership.”

DS reseller partner InFlow Technology is handling all aspects of Knapheide’s PLM solution implementation. “Our next step is for InFlow to expand data access to our engineers at remote facilities,” added Weiss. “We hope, eventually, to enable collaboration with our suppliers and partners.”

For more information, visit the Dassault Systèmes booth (#1767) at the SAE World Congress and view demonstrations of automotive solutions that can help companies improve quality, reduce costs and drive innovation throughout the product development cycle.