Dassault Systèmes’ DELMIA Robotics Selected by Gillett Evernham Motorsports

Design Engineers Drastically Cut Design Time and Reduce Robot Programming by 40% 

Auburn Hills, MI., June 12, 2008— Dassault Systèmes (DS) (Nasdaq: DASTY; Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA), a world leader in 3D and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions, announced today that its DELMIA V5 Robotics solution has been selected by Gillett Evernham Motorsports (GEM) for its 3D welding simulation tool, adding to its growing stable of V5 PLM solutions.  GEM is in its eighth full season as one of NASCAR’s premier racing organizations, fielding cars in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series and Nationwide Series.

 “I have an ‘open wheel’ mindset that constantly pushes our teams, whether racing or engineering, to go further, faster, with better technology,” claims Mark McArdle, vice president and managing director of competition for GEM.  “DELMIA Robotics has enabled our design engineers to drastically reduce the amount of time it takes to design fixtures and program our robots to weld our suspension components.” 

The DELMIA Robotics software provided GEM with the ability to model the fixturing for the part and place the fixturing with the part to be welded within the 3D model, thereby allowing the welding robot to simulate its tool path. All reconfiguring and iterations can then be done in the virtual environment of the robotic cell, where the only investment is the software operator's time.
 
GEM is not a high volume shop. So, although robot uptime is not a big issue, the ability to create the program for the robot in DELMIA Robotics and then download to the robot versus manually programming the robot is a notable savings in this high tech lean environment.  A 100-step program can often take 10 hours to physically teach, tweak, maneuver, and adjust the robot. When utilizing V5 Robotics, GEM design engineers estimate that the programming time has been cut by 40% today and could be cut by up to 50% (five hours) when GEM has realized all the capabilities of the software.

V5 Robotics can capture and reuse best practices, leverage programming knowledge and automate the repetitive work of robot programming, helping to reduce cost, design and manufacturing time, and accelerating time-to-track.  For GEM design engineers, the visual analysis aspect of V5 Robotics eliminates scrap, anticipates tolerance and clearance issues, leading to the additional benefits that there is no need to continually re-machine fixtures to incorporate changes, no machinist time is wasted, and no CNC time is used.

In addition to Dassault Systèmes’ DELMIA software, GEM also uses Dassault Systèmes’ CATIA, which enables engineers to design parts, assemblies and entire vehicles; test their performance and maximize them for strength and weight as well as their ENOVIA solutions for information-sharing between the company’s ever-increasing teams and facilities. 

Technology and innovation are at the foundation of GEM’s racing success.  In the past seven seasons, GEM has blazed a new trail in performance. “Utilizing the DELMIA V5 Robotics software is just another example of Gillett Evernham’s commitment to being the technology leader in motorsports,” said Kendall Pond, vice president business development at Dassault Systèmes. “By creating an environment where technology and racing are co-dependent, Gillett Evernham Motorsports has set a new standard in the industry beyond the race track.”