IBM Helps Aisin AI Co. Accelerate Delivery of Quality Automotive Parts with Dassault Systèmes Product Lifecycle Management Solutions

Tokyo, Japan -   June 9, 2008 -  At 2008 JCF today, IBM (NYSE:IBM) announced new technology milestones reached by Aisin AI Co. Ltd.,  a leading manual transmission manufacturer in Japan and the world, in speeding up its product development while ensuring quality and reliability remain a standard. Through its adoption of Dassault Systèmes’ virtual product design solution (CATIA) and online collaboration solution (ENOVIA), Aisin AI has significantly reduced the time and complexity involved in managing thousands of digital design processes needed to deliver high-quality,  manual transmissions.  

At JCF, representatives of Aisin AI will discuss the design improvement of manual transmissions delivered to millions of truck, auto and motorcycle drivers as "stick shifts."   These manual transmissions require extensive modeling exercises that must be tied into a data management methodology to support the entire 3D design.  

 Recently, automakers have been urged to develop cars in a shorter period of time in order to respond swiftly to diversifying customer needs.  Aisin AI goal was to focus on upgrading product development capabilities aimed at improving product quality and shortening product development schedules. 

The company launched these upgrade initiatives several years ago, focused initially in rolling out a 3D virtual design system.  Using CATIA, the company created modeling rules and data to support concurrent, design reviews.  With this new 3D framework, product designers can start analyses and design reviews as early as the first stage in product design.  They can also perform design interference tests to avoid costly, product design mistakes.     

With this new 3D virtual design solution,  Aisin AI achieved a high-level of design perfection which led to an overall increase in product quality.  The manipulation of 3D design and product-related data in ENOVIA SmarTeam led to major improvements in the product design process including a reduction in the number of drafts, effective data manipulation across the design process; and a reduction in the total design and development of new products.  Time was saved and re-invested in new designs, development planning, and execution of core operations.

Aisin AI plans to use 3D data models to further improve quality design and leverage data residing in CATIA’s CAM functions for the production process.  Additionally, the company plans to work with its affiliated companies to extend its 3D data sharing, thus achieving greater work efficiency.

“In the fast-changing auto industry, in particular, it is important to constantly respond to changes and continuously make improvements.  We believe our mission is to help automakers and related manufacturers to do so,” said Minoru Habu, Director,  IBM Product Lifecycle Management, Japan IBM Software Group. “We are enthusiastic about  Aisin AI recent use of Dassault Systèmes’ PLM solutions and very satisfied that this  helped them resolve its problems.”

“We are very pleased that Aisin AI used our PLM solutions,” said Nikos Calfacacos, General Manager, Dassault Systèmes.  “Implementation of PLM and effective use of 3D data from CATIA V5 are extremely effective in optimizing the overall process and improving collaboration throughout the supply chain.  We believe that Aisin AI will further enhance its competitiveness in the auto industry in the years to come.”