Gardena to Cultivate Product Development with PLM Solutions from IBM and Dassault Systèmes

German garden supply vendor deploys CATIA V5 and SMARTEAM

Ulm, Germany, and Paris, France – September 16th, 2004 – IBM and Dassault Systèmes (Nasdaq: DASTY; Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA) today announced that Gardena AG, a leading international supplier of products for the planning, design and care of gardens, has chosen to deploy the CATIA V5 and SMARTEAM Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Solutions.

Gardena will use its expanded PLM implementation to focus on improving its product-development processes. Using CATIA V5, the world’s leading 3D digital product development solution, Gardena’s engineers will design products ranging from gardening shears to irrigation computers. With SMARTEAM, for collaborative product data and lifecycle management, engineers will be able to share data with partners and across other Gardena departments, and manage product development collaboratively in real time. Both products are developed by Dassault Systèmes.

IBM PLM Solutions will enable Gardena, which had previously installed CATIA V4, to define its entire product line virtually, before production, thereby eliminating the need to create expensive product prototypes. The company will also be able to better manage and reduce the number and variety of parts used in its products, thereby saving overhead costs.

Participating in the Gardena PLM implementation with IBM and Dassault Systèmes are IBM Business Partners Ei-Tea GmbH, Schwindt CAD/CAM Technologie GmbH, and T-Systems.

“The primary reason why we decided to implement PLM solutions from IBM and Dassault Systèmes was the integration of CATIA V5’s design capabilities with SMARTEAM’s collaborative product data and lifecycle management functionality in a single package,” said Johannes Stephany, head of product development processes, Gardena AG.

"The availability of 3D models in early phases of development projects gives us a chance to qualify concepts and development plans," said Peter Lameli, head of research and development, Gardena AG. "Virtual prototypes minimize risk and allow us to avoid cost-intensive prototypes."

“Gardena’s choice underscores the capabilities and the openness of our PLM solutions, which enable our consumer goods customers to integrate them readily in their current environments and reuse legacy data,” said Raoul van Engelshoven, vice president, PLM, IBM Europe Middle East and Africa. “The integration of design functionality in CATIA V5 and the networked process management functionality in SMARTEAM offer consumer goods companies a powerful solution for innovative product development.”

“As Gardena’s decision to expand its implementation shows, the consumer goods market is the next frontier for PLM Solutions,” said Denis Senpéré, vice president of PLM, Europe, Dassault Systèmes. “Companies in this market are discovering that they too can experience the same return on investment that our PLM solutions have delivered to companies in other industries for years.”