“Virtual Platform” Design Collaboration and PLM Bring Huge Gains and Unprecedented Quality to Dassault Aviation’s New Falcon 7X Jet Aircraft

Development of high-end business jet is revolutionized as engineers from 27 firms work together using Dassault Systèmes PLM solutions.

At Dassault Aviation S.A., the French builder of executive, or business jet, aircraft, design collaboration based on product lifecycle management (PLM) has led to a fundamental business transformation in the way its new Falcon 7X aircraft was designed, engineered, and readied for production.

PLM has centered on new methods for the Falcon 7X engineers to work together, regardless of whether they are on the Dassault Aviation payroll or are one of the 300 representatives from 27 co-development partners in seven countries. The benefits of this transformation are so dramatic that they bear summarizing right at the outset:

• Product quality never before achieved in aerospace history. The perfect definition of the Falcon 7X’s digitally designed parts means pieces fit together within one one-hundredth of a centimeter.
• Assembly problems such as misalignments and missing parts were cut 100%.
• The physical prototype—the traditional full-size mock-up of the aircraft, was entirely eliminated—an aero industry first that by itself saved millions of euros.
• Tooling costs were cut by at least one-half and possibly by as much as two-thirds because fit-up went so smoothly.
• The first Falcon 7X was assembled 55% faster than its predecessor.
• Increased sustainable development through greater competitiveness and environmental protection.

In September 2002, Dassault Aviation linked its partners electronically through a single, virtual collaborative workspace, dubbed the Virtual Platform, in which they share a common, configured, constantly-updated digital mock-up of the Falcon 7X.

The Virtual Platform is based on Dassault Systèmes (DS) PLM solutions. Virtual Platform is linked tightly to CATIA for product definition and digital assembly, to ENOVIA for real-time sharing of the digital mock-up, and to DELMIA for digital factory and manufacturing processes simulation. Dassault Aviation uses DELMIA to define the critical maintenance operations of the Falcon 7X.

This gave the Falcon 7X developers a common, fully configured, and constantly updated digital mock-up of the aircraft. There were more than one million updates in 2004 alone. “We expanded our use of PLM for the Falcon 7X program in order to optimize the aircraft from the outset and throughout the entire development process,” said Jacques Pellas, Chief Information Officer (CIO) of Dassault Aviation.

Working closely together, the 500 engineers from Dassault Aviation and its partners created the aircraft’s first definition in just a few weeks at the company’s engineering facilities in St. Cloud, France.

The development embraced business partners in six other European countries, the USA and Canada. The centerpiece of the ENOVIA workspace was a digital mock-up of the Falcon 7X, built with geometry common to all their systems, fully configured as engineering progressed, and constantly updated. One benefit of DS PLM is the precision detailing of its digitally defined parts—all 40,000 of them, plus 200,000 fasteners.

“Thanks to PLM, we created an absolutely perfect definition of the aircraft,” said Christian Decaix, Executive Vice President, Operations. Because of the perfect alignment of the drilled holes between sections and components, Dassault Aviation found that many positioning tools (fixtures) were rendered obsolete. Based on today's market value of such capital equipment, the potential cost savings to a manufacturing organization can easily reach hundreds of thousands of euros.

Also rendered obsolete by the digital precision was the industry’s traditional full-scale aircraft mockup. The mockup alone saved millions and cut several months from the development cycle.

There are always mistakes in designs: the underlying rationale of PLM is to make as many of those as possible in the virtual world. Wring out the design that way rather than with physical prototypes. Thus to Dassault Aviation, PLM is the “next wave of productivity.”

Bernard Charlès, President and CEO of Dassault Systèmes, observes that “digital manufacturing with DELMIA completes the DS PLM offering and helps companies focus on the ‘non-touch labor’ of manufacturing in planning and engineering. This is a new way of sharing information, a pipeline of information for working together, for optimizing and revolutionizing the way products and goods are manufactured.”

“PLM offers radically new ways to cooperate, collaborate, and utilize capital assets better,” he added. “We think of it as giving you the opportunity to optimize what you could be versus what you are. PLM is also a way to capture innovations at each stage of the product’s lifecycle and to improve the physical life of products, their usefulness and economic life span.”

Meyn Speeds Time-to-Market with PLM Solutions from IBM, Dassault Systèmes and MSC.Software

Company integrates CATIA V5 and SMARTEAM with ERP and sales-configuration tools to maximize responsiveness

IBM and Dassault Systèmes announced that Meyn Food Processing Technology B.V. has chosen their PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) solutions to improve time-to-market and responsiveness to customers. MSC.Software (OTC: MNSC.PK), an IBM Business Partner, is supporting Meyn in the implementation of the PLM solutions.

Meyn is using CATIA V5 and SMARTEAM, both IBM PLM solutions developed by Dassault Systèmes, to re-engineer its development and manufacturing processes for the production of poultry-processing equipment. CATIA V5, for 3D product development, and SMARTEAM, for collaborative product data and lifecycle management, will enable the company to maximize the efficiency of its develop-to-order, engineer-to-order, and configure-to-order processes.

Meyn will also enhance collaboration in all phases of the product lifecycle and across the enterprise by integrating CATIA V5 and SMARTEAM with a sales-configuration tool and an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. This integration will enable the company to enhance innovation in its product development and manufacturing operations and decrease delivery time to customers.

“Meyn provides its customers with complex processing systems in a competitive market that sees short lead times in combination with an exceptional product variety,” said Steef Klein, CIO, Meyn Food. “Tightly managing both the development and the realization process in terms of speed, costs, and accuracy provides additional competitive advantages. We are happy that IBM, Dassault Systèmes and MSC were able to match our ambitions in this respect.”

“We are excited to help Meyn start its journey as an On Demand business,” said Mike Kuklenko, manager, PLM solutions, IBM North Region. “The tight integration between CATIA V5 and SMARTEAM, with its supply chain and sales processes, will enable Meyn to answer any customer request with speed and increase product quality and services.”

“The technology, services and expertise that a combined team of MSC, IBM and Dassault Systèmes bring to customers are unmatched in the market and give us a unique ability to help manufacturing companies of all sizes improve their processes and better understand product performance,” adds Bill Weyand, chairman and CEO, MSC.Software. “We look forward to this project and are confident that engineers at Meyn will quickly realize a return on their investment in MSC, IBM and Dassault Systèmes.”

“Meyn’s implementation of PLM solutions is in line with our vision for PLM in the industrial machinery market,” said Laurent Couillard, director, channel and small and medium-sized businesses, EMEA, Dassault Systèmes. “By combining Meyn's domain expertise with MSC.Software’s services and our technology and best practices, we can enable Meyn to enhance its level of competitiveness, strengthening collaboration from early sales through to maintenance.”

Retaining Proprietary Rights in a 3D World

In the 2D drawing world many of us put a text note on the drawing format to tell the viewer that the data was the property of our company.

Now we’re moving to 3D datasets; how do we inform the receiver of the data that we the originator retain our proprietary rights?

Any insights would be appreciated.

Phil Harrison
Principal
LionHeart Solutions Inc.