Kobelco Accelerates Engineering Innovation with PLM Solutions from IBM and Dassault Systèmes

Construction machinery manufacturer streamlines development of hydraulic excavators with CATIA V5 and SMARTEAM

Tokyo, Japan and Paris, France, October 13, 2004 - IBM and Dassault Systèmes (Nasdaq: DASTY, Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA) today announced that Kobelco Construction Machinery Co., Ltd., one of the world’s leading manufacturers of construction machinery, has successfully used their PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) solutions to streamline the development and improve the quality of its hydraulic excavators.

Using CATIA V5, the world’s leading 3D product-development application, Kobelco has created full digital mock-ups of its hydraulic excavators and can now view the entire product and correct potential problems early in the design process. At the stage of making a prototype machine, CATIA V5 has delivered improved product quality, a 30 percent reduction in the time required for design changes, and a 50 percent reduction of design defects. CATIA V5 and SMARTEAM, for collaborative product data and lifecycle management, have also improved efficiency by enabling the sharing and re-use of intellectual assets within the company.

Kobelco also plans to use CATIA V5’s knowledgeware functionality for the reuse of designs and 3D data usage at manufacturing and sales divisions, as well as take advantage of SMARTEAM’s Web functionality to strengthen its collaboration with group companies, thereby improving efficiency even further.

“In this industry, as competition becomes more severe, we need to develop products to meet the customer requirements for high-quality, affordable products produced in a short time,” said Tetsutaro Yanaka, group manager, Engineering Administration in the General Engineering Dept. at Kobelco Construction Machinery. “CATIA V5 and SMARTEAM have enabled to strengthen processes within the design team. We achieved this positive outcome thanks to a powerful, integrated solution.”

"IBM PLM solutions have helped Kobelco speed up time to market and constantly improve the quality of its product,” said Junichi Takeuchi, Asia Pacific director, IBM Product Lifecycle Management Solutions, IBM Asia Pacific Service. “Those key ingredients helped the company strengthen its leading position in a most challenging environment. We are committed to continue helping manufacturers implement a winning strategy with our world- class PLM industry-specific solutions and methodologies."

“Kobelco’s success clearly demonstrates the value PLM solutions developed by Dassault Systèmes deliver,” said Christian Nardin, managing director, Dassault Systèmes Asia. “A key aspect for Kobelco is the ability to simulate and optimize concurrently all aspects of excavator engineering, packaging, operation and ergonomics, while capitalizing on and re-using engineering knowledge to more rapidly derive the multiple variants the market requires.”

Kobelco will present details on the benefits of this implementation today at the European CATIA forum at Disneyland Paris.