PLM helps car maker plan ahead

An IBM Product Lifecycle Management Solutions product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Apr 5, 2006

Car maker uses PLM to define a work plan to build the next generation digital mock-up for 2009, to increase customer satisfaction as security and comfort requirements can be evaluated early.

Following the implementation of PLM products based on Catia V4 and virtual product management (VPM), PSA Peugeot Citroen deployed Catia V5 in December 2004 and through 2005 pursued its commitment to PLM with a joint work plan using next generation digital mock up tools.

This is helping the car maker speed the development of cars and improve price-quality ratios, thus helping strengthen its position in the global automotive industry.

To speed the renewal of its Peugeot and Citroen car models - one-third of its portfolio has been updated in the past year - PSA Peugeot Citroen is using IBM and Dassault Systemes PLM products.

These will help the firm grow sales to four million cars.

The group has broadened its PLM implementation and deployed a full global IBM PLM system including the latest V5 portfolio of Catia, Delmia and Enovia developed by Dassault, IBM's middleware (DB2 database) and hardware (IBM EServers), and using IBM Global Services to ensure high availability of the PLM environment.

PSA Peugeot Citroen is gradually migrating from Catia V4 to V5 and deploying Delmia in an integrated 3D digital mock-up environment.

The group will use Catia V5's functionalities in a VPM environment, tailored to its needs by IBM Global Services, Dassault and PSA Peugeot Citroen teams.

The objective is to launch future car programmes faster, reusing existing knowledge with template-based approaches.

The car maker has also selected Delmia digital manufacturing products from Dassault to improve final assembly processes in its manufacturing plants.

These are serving 29 vehicle development projects in eight plants throughout the world.

"In a market that never stops segmenting and diversifying, the success of our group lies in its capacity to develop and launch differentiated and innovative cars as soon as possible to satisfy our demanding and diverse customers", said Jean-Luc Perrard, VP for Product and Process Information Technology at PSA Peugeot Citroen.

"The deployment of IBM and Dassault's PLM products helps us focus on our core businesses and guarantees the feasibility of new concepts that respect our security rules".

In December 2005, to anticipate evolution of the automotive industry, PSA Peugeot Citroen, IBM and Dassault defined a work plan to build the next generation digital mock-up for 2009.

This will increase customer satisfaction as security and comfort requirements can be evaluated and optimised at an early design stage, and will avoid costly last minute changes.

Thanks to the integrated PLM environment, design ideas will be shared earlier in the process with extended teams.

This way, consistency between simulation results and CAD data can be guaranteed, helping speed up design decisions and improving quality.

PSA Peugeot Citroen is pursuing international expansion, particularly in Central and Eastern Europe, China and Latin America.

IBM and Dassault's collaborative PLM products give suppliers remote access to product development data and enable designers from 45 sites of the group around the world to access digital mock-ups in a well-controlled environment, each user having access to a limited set of data, according to their working perimeter.

"PSA Peugeot Citroen, a world-class group within a highly global and competitive industry, has partnered with IBM on innovation, its key differentiator", said Herve Rolland, VP of PLM Products, IBM Europe.

"Increased productivity, optimal quality and quicker time-to-market with the ability to keep development costs at a minimum: these are the benefits that PSA Peugeot Citroen can rely on with our collaborative PLM products".

"The recent agreement demonstrates our total commitment to helping our customers meet their critical business challenges".

Etienne Droit, Executive VP of PLM Sales and Distribution, Dassault Systemes, said: "PSA Peugeot Citroen's decision to extend its PLM implementation by migrating from Catia V4 to V5 and deploying Delmia underscores the value it places on our PLM products and in our partnership".

"We have been working in close collaboration with PSA Peugeot Citroen for many years to develop specialised automotive best practices and modules which help it to focus on innovation".

"The result is a winning partnership for our companies".