Koito Manufacturing Cuts Product Development Time with Product Lifecycle Management Solutions from IBM and Dassault Systèmes

Automotive lighting equipment leader uses solutions to create revolutionary product development methodology - reduces development cycles substantially

Tokyo, Japan and Paris, France – July 18, 2003 – IBM and Dassault Systèmes (Nasdaq: DASTY, Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA) today announced that Koito Manufacturing has deployed a ground-breaking product development methodology for automotive lighting equipment development using IBM PLM Solutions with software from Dassault Systèmes.

Koito’s powerful PLM platform is made up of IBM and Dassault Systèmes’ CATIA® V5 for collaborative virtual product development and SMARTEAM® for product data management, along with Dassault Systèmes’ DELMIA™ for digital manufacturing and processes simulation. These fully integrated applications are the foundation of Koito’s innovative methodology, enabling the company to shorten its development cycle times and improve quality through automated shape design change updates, design error reduction, and assembly simulation and validation.

Koito has been a pioneer in the development of automotive lighting equipment using PLM technology from IBM and Dassault Systèmes since 1985. Koito has oriented its competitive business strategy toward collaborative product development with the goal of increasing process efficiency and product quality for complex projects. The PLM platform provides a collaborative work environment for development teams and partners that increases development efficiency and product quality, spanning the entire development lifecycle from concept and design to manufacturing.

“The business environment for automotive suppliers such as Koito is becoming more challenging due to global competition, shorter time-to-market for vehicle manufacturers, and continued calls for cost reduction,” said Shuichi Goto, executive senior managing director of Koito Manufacturing. “In order to maintain and enhance our positioning as a global leader, we needed to transform our business processes. We had to become more agile and flexible to meet and exceed our customers’ demands. PLM technology from IBM and Dassault Systèmes is helping us achieve our goal of becoming the innovative technology pioneer in the automotive lighting industry.”

“Koito’s successful implementation of our Solutions is an ideal showcase of the benefits of Dassault Systèmes’ integrated PLM offer,” said Etienne Droit, executive vice president of Sales and Marketing, Dassault Systèmes. "Koito uses CATIA V5 and its Knowledge technology to reuse valuable corporate data, SMARTEAM to manage and share engineering data, and DELMIA to define, simulate and validate how the products are built – incorporating manufacturing processes and resources. Since all three solutions are linked through a central Product, Process, Resource (PPR) hub, development teams and partners can collaborate in real time, which is key to maintaining a competitive advantage as the globalization trend continues.”