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Editor's note. Here's how one American manufacturer found the right product lifecycle management (PLM) solution for its particular needs. Since no two businesses are the same, we recommend you visit Technology Evaluation Centers' (TEC's) PLM evaluation center to find out which PLM solutions are designed to work best with your company's business model and special requirements.
Automotive aficionados know American Specialty Cars (ASC) as the company that introduced factory installed sunroofs to the North American market in the 1960s, and as a key contributor to the memorable styling of the Dodge SRT-4, the Viper, and the Chrysler Group SRT-8 models.
ASC's latest innovation—an open-air roof system for minivans and sport utility vehicles called InfiniVu—offers the potential to rejuvenate the segment, which has been hard hit by soaring gas prices and a lack of styling innovation. InfiniVu, which ASC describes as a “sunvertible,” invariably prompts people who see it for the first time to delightedly exclaim, “Wow!”
Design Agility Accommodates a Soaring Market Opportunity
The product's impact is so strong, in fact, that automakers are clamoring to be among the first to offer InfiniVu. ASC's investment in V5 Product Lifecycle Management (V5 PLM) solutions from Dassault Systèmes allows it to meet demand by customizing the system to a particular model in record time, with escalating quality.
The InfiniVu is available in a fabric version, which opens accordion-style from back to front, front to back, or in various combinations. This allows users to open the entire roof or to protect select passengers from sun and wind—children sitting in the back seat, for example. It also comes in a style made of glass or Lexan panels, which slide and stack to achieve the same variations.
If even 10 percent of buyers choose InfiniVu as an option, ASC will sell more than a million units annually. But the numbers are likely to be much higher: nearly half of all two-door cars sold are convertibles. Coupled with automakers' hunger for differentiating features, ASC knew the announcement of the InfiniVu would bring immediate pressure to produce it—fast.
The Right Solution, Used the Right Way
ASC had used CATIA V5, Dassault Systèmes' market-leading V5 PLM solution, for years in its basic design work. But the company hadn't implemented the time-saving parametric design and knowledgeware features of CATIA V5 needed to meet projected InfiniVu demand. Said Chris P. Theodore, ASC vice chairman: “The good news was that we had the right tool. The bad news was that we weren't using the tool right.”
With support from Dassault Systèmes, ASC restructured its CATIA V5 data to leverage parametric design capabilities and templates. Streamlined processes that eliminated wasted effort were automated using PLM principles. Once automated, ASC engineers could enter a few parameters—the roof dimensions and surface characteristics, structural integrity requirements, and positioning of side curtain airbags, for example—and the software automatically morphed the design to meet that specific vehicle's requirements.
With CATIA V5, ASC was able to ramp up innovation and quality faster because users could build on their knowledge with each design iteration, delivering more benefit to each successive customer. Accumulated learning and design in context also helped eliminate arbitrary mistakes because everyone on a project could see not only what had been done, but why.
The benefit that made all others possible, however, was real-time communication. “Having one set of data that is shared in real time makes information clear and transparent, and eliminates a lot of waste,” Theodore says. “The ultimate vision for PLM is that if a change is made, everybody knows about it in a nanosecond, along with all of the implications for cost, tooling, and assembly.”
ASC has aggressive plans to continue building on its early successes. The next step is to move into full knowledge-based engineering (KBE) that captures not only design information, but also analysis, tooling, manufacturing, and costing information, among others. ASC also wants to build rules that will allow its fabric and solid designs to be interchanged automatically, and to apply its lessons from InfiniVu to the rest of its business.