Berret-Racoupeau Yacht Design, one of France's largest yacht architectural firms, has selected IBM and Dassault Systèmes product lifecycle management (PLM) solutions for development of its new boat designs.

A prestigious name in the internationally-renowned French recreational boat industry, Berret-Racoupeau specialises in the design of serial production sailboats, luxury sailboats and racing boats.

With IBM PLM Solutions' CATIA V5 naval architect package, Berret-Racoupeau will have in a single solution all the design tools currently only available in separate, specialised applications. CATIA V5 will eliminate the difficulty of merging product data from different sources, enable concurrent engineering in a collaborative 3D development environment, and facilitate re-use of existing data for the design of boats within the same product line.

"In order to design the wide and various range of boats we design, we are obliged to use a series of specialised, yet separate tools," says Olivier Racoupeau, associate chairman, Berret-Racoupeau. "With the industry solution approach of Dassault Systèmes and IBM, we can optimise and integrate our design process. The integration of naval architectural design principles within CATIA V5 enables us to propose more complete and innovative project studies, with the added benefit of data continuity."

"One of the most labour-intensive, costly and error-prone activities in shipbuilding is design," says Klaus Schaefer, vice president, IBM product lifecycle management, Europe Middle East and Africa. "With IBM PLM Solutions, we give designers better ways to innovate and communicate design intent to builders, owners and subcontractors. By using our powerful collaborative solutions, clients such as Berret-Racoupeau can redirect the time spent producing drawings into innovative vessel designs that address market demand."

"We developed the CATIA V5 naval architect package to give firms such as Berret-Racoupeau revolutionary design features," explains Arnaud Poujardieu, Director, Dassault Systèmes Solutions France, in charge of implementation at Berret-Racoupeau. "For example, the software automatically takes into account technical specifications of standard components such as the boat's mass and centre of gravity to calculate optimum stability and balance. It is a cutting-edge way to design projects that increases design quality, reduces development time, and cuts costs."

For more information contact local CATIA representative, Igal Filipovski, CDC (CNC Design Consultants), 011 786 3516, igal@cdcza.co.za, www.cdcza.co.za