Centre brings PLM to Canadian aerospace industry

An IBM Product Lifecycle Management Solutions product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Sep 19, 2005

IBM Canada has set up a major international product lifecycle management centre of excellence in Montreal - with Bombardier Aerospace as its first customer.

IBM Canada has set up a major international product lifecycle management (PLM) centre of excellence in Montreal - with Bombardier Aerospace as its first customer.

The creation of this centre of excellence will enable Canadian manufacturers to participate in large projects by providing them with sophisticated PLM expertise and solutions.

The new centre will support manufacturing companies of all sises throughout their product development processes, from design to maintenance - a discipline known as product lifecycle management (PLM).

This centre, the latest in IBM's international network of PLM centres, has a global mission with a North-American focus spanning a broad range of industries including aerospace, automotive, industrial, oil and gas, chemicals and electronics.

"With the launch of this PLM centre of excellence, we are giving Canadian companies a competitive edge to help them win in international markets", said Marc Dube, Executive Director for IBM in the Industrial Sector.

"We are also strengthening Montreal's strategic position as a technology hub, and we are helping to further strengthen the Canadian and more specifically, the Quebec aerospace sector", explained Denis Desbiens, Vice President of IBM Quebec.

As the launch customer, Bombardier Aerospace will be the first manufacturing company to benefit from the breadth of PLM expertise offered at the new centre.

For the duration of the five-year contract, IBM will manage Bombardier's current portfolio of PLM applications and implement new ones to support upcoming business requirements.

Approximately 40 Bombardier employees will join IBM's PLM centre of excellence in the coming weeks.

The centre, which will create jobs for more than 200 highly skilled professionals, is to provide customers such as Bombardier Aerospace access to PLM capabilities in order to manage the design and production of large, complex products such as aircraft, automobiles, oil refineries or hydroelectric dams.

The centre will leverage existing relationships with industry partners and integrate industry standard technologies such as Dassault Systems' Catia, Enovia and Delmia leading design software.

"There is a significant number of small, medium-sized and large manufacturing companies based in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada that need PLM capabilities to further extend their reach", said Bernard Roy, Partner, Industrial Sector at IBM Canada's Business Consulting Services.

"Our PLM centre is offering state-of-the-art expertise to help them reduce manufacturing costs and improve time to market".

"Being the first customer of IBM's international PLM centre here in Montreal enables us to tap into the best PLM solutions to continuously access key expertise, improve our processes and accelerate product development", said Robert Proulx, Vice President, Business Processes and Chief Information Officer, Bombardier Aerospace.