Presentation

Business

References

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PLM, a key factor for innovation and competitiveness in the global economy

When competing on an international scale, the competitiveness of our companies must be guaranteed by innovation and increased added value, in order to meet the needs of their clients : competitiveness, flexibility, responsiveness, quality, fulfilled commitments.
This calls for :

• Innovations in organization, processes and methods used
• New industrial networks, providing companies of all sizes with the necessary skills
• Digital integration of industrial clusters and promotion of new skills like full range of services offer (design, production and support), etc.
  

These new skills can only be acquired through the intensive use of digital technology : new methods of e-business are becoming a strategic and competitive vital need.
In industry, PLM (Product Lifecycle Management) is the main source of innovation and competitiveness, by sharing product definition amongst the various actors, and by taking production and support constraints into consideration from the outset :

• Shorter development cycle and time to market (reduction down to 18 to 6 months for the best in class)
• Improved quality of design (factor of 10 for the F7X Virtual Platform used by Dassault Aviation)
• Integration of production and support processes from the design stage
• Shorter assembly costs and cycles (factor of 2)
  

The new PLM challenges : the use of the Virtual Plateau

In the era of paper plans, problems associated with the interface between parts or devices developed by different partners often emerged when prototypes were being developed and these were responsible for the delay and added cost involved.

Developments in CAO tools have opened up a new approach : the Digital Mockup, replacing expensive physical models.

The collaboration that is required in order to implement complex projects has given rise to physical work platforms that bring together in one place all of the players involved in a project and enable them to access the Digital Model.

The work platforms enabled the programme to be more easily coordinated and developed. The quality of information transferred between the platform and the production centers has improved significantly as a result, but the people working on the physical platform were cut off from the usual working environment, company data bases and business tools specific to their line of work.

With the arrival of the Virtual Plateau, each person can work in his usual environment, whilst being able to communicate easily with his partners as if they were in the same room. It makes it possible to present data in digital form : geometry, lists, calculations, tests, etc. so that they can be integrated as automatically as possible, and in a secure way, into the Technical Data Management System, the product Digital Mockup and the manufacturing process. All of this must be done according to the same procedures as the ones used within the company.

PLM collaborative work tools thus effectively respond to new requirements connected with innovation and competitiveness. However, in spite of apparently being easy to use, these tools do sometimes require a sophisticated and complex technological environment and a review of traditional company procedures.

In addition, companies working for several clients and different areas of activity must be able to fit into the collaborative set-up specific to each one. This leads to problems of cost and organization that can only be solved by harmonised processes and standards of exchange.

3 main families of complementary standards

There are 3 main families of complementary standards in the context of PLM for the Extended Enterprise :

• ISO/STEP : product data exchange standardization
• UN/CEFACT : collaborative process standardization
• W3C : technologies and services

Partner responsible for PLM

Jean BRANGE, jean.brange@boost-conseil.com, +33 683 628 902

Skills and services provided by BOOST-PLM

The BOOST-PLM team consists of international experts, members of the ISO, UN/CEFACT and AFNeT

• PDM / PLM Project Management assistance
• PDM / PLM cross sectors benchmark
• STEP / WEB server applications development

References - http://www.boost-plm.com

Industrial sectors

Aerospace and Defence : Assistance with choosing the right extended enterprise solution on the European digital hub, benchmarking the PLM projects of leading industries
Aeronautic industry, car manufacturing, railways, electronics, mechanical engineering : developing standards and a collaborative PLM co-conception platform, in the context of the SEINE project run by GIFAS (http://seine.boost-management.com)
Ministry of the Economy, Finance and Industry : PLM coordination between sectors on sector-based project in the TIC&PME 2010 action plan, as part of the Boost-Industrie & AFNET Services project (http://www.boost-industry.com)

Companies

Alstom-Marine (Aker Yards) : Assistance for the deployment of the PDM project

Public bodies

OCCAR (European defence agency) : Definition of e-business and collaborative strategy
CETIM (Mechanical engineering industry) : evaluation of and best practice in collaborative PLM platforms
ARD : DEFI-D / Digital mockup : regional eco-conception platform in Ile de France