ORECA Adopts CATIA V5 and SMARTEAM To Design Racing Cars and Manage Their Data

Dassault Systemes’ 3D PLM Solutions help ORECA speed up for the 24 hours of Le Mans

 

Le Mans, France - June 14th, 2002 - The ORECA Group, leaders in endurance racing, and Dassault Systemes (Nasdaq : DASTY ; Euronext Paris : #13065, DSY.PA) today announced that ORECA Motorsport uses CATIA V5 and SMARTEAM solutions for designing the prototypes for their new 24 hours of Le Mans cars. The engineers at ORECA Motorsport use CATIA V5 on six Windows-based workstations to design in 3D the mechanical and aerodynamic components of their cars .

 

The Team has been using CATIA since the mid-90’s but it was in November 2000, during the launch of their « Le Mans Challenge » program, that Dassault Systemes became a technology partner of ORECA. Indeed, the CATIA solutions have allowed the design of the LMP–900 prototype cars involved in endurance races like the 24 hours of Le Mans and the FIA Sports Car championship. ORECA also uses CATIA in their competition car development activities, especially in mechanical and other component design for private teams’ VIPERs, and for the nine ORECA chassis used by private teams in the Silhouette category of the French National Championship.

Since the beginning of 2002, ORECA has also been using SMARTEAM tools. Thanks to their total integration with Dassault Systemes’ CATIA V5 and 3D PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) solutions, SMARTEAM allows optimized product life cycle and processes management. Design engineers can thus manage the CATIA V5 data and their attributes, and also external data, as well as different versions of CATIA-designed parts.

 

« Already satisfied with our work with CATIA over the last few years, it was natural for us to implement tools which will grant different contributors optimum access to data, and guarantee unity, validity, sharing and storage. Thanks to it’s great integration with CATIA V5, SMARTEAM gives us this possibility, » said Hugues de Chaunac, President of ORECA.

 

 

« In motor sports, every second counts, whether you’re on the track or in the design office, » explains Pierre Balza, Sales Director for France, Switzerland and the Benelux for Dassault Systemes. « The power of Dassault Systemes’ 3D PLM solutions will help ORECA take on the challenge of winning the world’s most difficult race: The 24 hours of Le Mans. »