Korean Automotive Supplier Daehan Speeds Time-to-market and Increases Customer Responsiveness with PLM Solutions from IBM and Dassault Systèmes

Cuts development costs by 20%, enhancing collaboration across dispersed teams to manage several car makers’ projects simultaneously

Paris, France and Seoul, Korea, March 30, 2006 – IBM and Dassault Systèmes (Nasdaq: DASTY; Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA), today announced that Daehan Solution Co. Ltd., a leading automotive supplier based in Korea, has deployed their Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions to increase OEM customer responsiveness and to cut costs, improving its competitive positioning in a highly competitive market.

Daehan specializes in the design, engineering and manufacturing of Noise, Vibration and Harshness (NVH) automotive parts. Engineering a pleasant-sounding, smooth-riding vehicle has become as important for automotive manufacturers as enhancing performance or style. Evaluating the right material from an NVH perspective is critical to design. As well, the ability to neutralize influencers like wind and road noise, as well as matching customers’ expectations of a quiet ride, is a competitive differentiator.

Already a CATIA user, Daehan has implemented SMARTEAM for product data management, to speed product development cycle-time and to manage multiple OEM customers’ projects simultaneously. By enabling Daehan to automate business processes throughout the entire product lifecycle, from planning and design to development and after-sales, this PLM solution has helped cut development costs by 20 per cent. With SMARTEAM, data from CATIA and other design-related 3D programs can be shared in real time, across global engineering teams.

Moving forward, Daehan intends to integrate CATIA V5 and SMARTEAM ─ solutions developed by Dassault Systèmes which belong to the IBM portfolio of PLM solutions ─ with its Enterprise Resource Planning* (ERP) system, leveraging its engineering and manufacturing knowledge for greater efficiencies and cost benefits, and for enhanced collaboration with its extended network of partners and suppliers.

“We considered it essential for us to implement SMARTEAM in order to shorten new car development times and systematically share the information on various domestic car development processes internally and with our partners,” said Chae Soo-kwan, Director, Daehan Solution Central Technology Research Center, adding: “Normally, it takes 24 months to develop a new car. With these integrated PLM solutions from IBM and Dassault Systèmes, we will be able to develop several cars simultaneously and reduce development costs by 20%.”

“In the highly competitive global automotive industry, rapid and sustainable innovation has become the only way for suppliers to succeed. Our PLM solutions can enable them to foster business and product innovation internally. The result is increased responsiveness to their customers’ requirements along with higher levels of quality and productivity,” says Jemann Park, Sales Executive, Product Lifecycle Solutions, IBM Korea.

“Automotive suppliers are under huge pressure to follow OEM-proposed standard procedures, such as Advanced Product Quality Planning and Process Sign Off,” noted Christian Nardin, Managing Director of Dassault Systèmes Asia. “The SMARTEAM solution provides second-to-none value for enterprise collaboration, data re-use, and process automation.  We are delighted that Daehan Solutions has achieved its business goal with our solutions.”