Lifecycle centre of excellence gets major support

An IBM Product Lifecycle Management Solutions product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Nov 11, 2004

IBM and Dassault Systemes have announced their support for a new Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Centre of Excellence at Purdue University.

IBM and Dassault Systemes have announced their support for a new Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Centre of Excellence at Purdue University.

The centre will provide PLM education and research, develop PLM training materials and house a demonstration facility.

The university's PLM programme will concentrate on complex product development and lifecycle management issues such as design optimisation in a grid environment, secure supply chain collaboration, knowledge-based systems for dynamic maintenance, structural diagnostics and prognostics, and product-health management.

Working with corporations in the aerospace, pharmaceutical, consumer products, manufacturing and healthcare industries, the centre of excellence will share its findings in case studies and best practice projects.

The centre already is working on PLM research projects with Boeing, DaimlerChrysler and Eli Lilly and Company.

The new centre will provide educational PLM experiences for undergraduate and graduate students in PLM implementation strategies and applications to help industry successfully integrate PLM as a business strategy.

More than 700 students at Purdue's school of technology, which produces more bachelor of Science graduates than any other technology school in the US are expected to use the centre annually.

A demonstration centre where components of PLM can be researched, studied, implemented and shared.

As founding members of the centre, IBM and Dassault Systemes are donating PLM solutions, including the full suite of IBM PLM solutions developed by Dassault Systemes - Catia, for digital creation and engineering, Enovia, for product data and lifecycle management and decision support; and Smarteam, for product lifecycle management; along with Delmia, a Dassault Systemes system for digital manufacturing and production.

IBM also has given Purdue a Shared University research award to outfit the centre with IBM xSeries and pSeries eServers and Intellistation workstations.

In total, there will be 50 workstations-each with IBM dual flat-panel displays-and three banks of server equipment to support the PLM environment.

"The School of Technology has recently completed work on PLM-related curriculum materials.

In addition, a number of students have been hired as interns during the past summer because of their experience using PLM tools in courses taught in the School of Technology," said Gary Bertoline, associate vice president for discovery resources at Purdue University.

"To remain competitive manufacturers across all industries need to recognise the new realities of innovation.

IBM is committed to work with leading schools such as Purdue on advanced research projects that can provide real world experience to our young inventors, before graduation; these programmes are crucial in accelerating innovation and keeping American manufacturers competitive," commented Scott Hopkins, general manager, IBM PLM Solutions.