IBM and Dassault Systèmes recently announced the signing of a contract for product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions with Evernham Motorsports, a leading Nascar Winston Cup Series race team.

IBM PLM Solutions, with CATIA V5 for collaborative product development and SMARTEAM for collaborative lifecycle management from Dassault Systèmes, will allow Evernham Motorsports to develop high performance race cars through virtual testing rather than building costly, full-scale physical prototypes.

Additionally, Evernham Motorsports will integrate the new PLM platform with its own inventory and maintenance programs, as well as with its internal financial systems. By linking with PLM Solutions from IBM and Dassault Systèmes, Evernham engineers will make design modifications while accessing car building-material information, field usage statistics, and inventory, all in one streamlined view, saving precious hours between races. This will allow Evernham Motorsports to gain efficiencies and focus more time on innovative ways to build faster, safer competition vehicles.

"With 38 races per season and constant changes and revisions to our race cars, our down time has to be undetectable," said Dr Eric Warren, technical director, Evernham Motorsports. "We want to streamline our approach and coordinate everything from manufacturing to maintenance. IBM PLM Solutions with Dassault Systèmes software have given us the tools to organise the entire flow of product data."

"Each season, NASCAR teams must develop new, complex parts and assemblies, all the while complying with strict stock car racing technical and regulatory specifications," said Marcelo Lemos, president, Dassault Systèmes America. "CATIA's exceptional collaborative product definition capabilities, coupled with SMARTEAM's leading-edge data management features, will give Evernham Motorsports the accelerated advantage required to build innovative, winning race cars."

The hardware platform chosen for the new PLM system is comprised of IBM M Pro and Z Pro IntelliStations and an IBM X Series eServer.

For further information contact CNC Design Consultants, 011 786 3516, igal@cdcza.co.za or see www.cdcza.co.za