IBM and Dassault Systèmes have announced their support for a new Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Centre of Excellence at Purdue University. The centre will provide PLM education and research, develop PLM training materials and house a demonstration facility.

The university's PLM programme will concentrate on complex product development and lifecycle management issues, such as design optimisation in a grid environment, secure supply chain collaboration, knowledge-based systems for dynamic maintenance, structural diagnostics and prognostics, and product-health management.

Working with corporations in the aerospace, pharmaceutical, consumer products, manufacturing and healthcare industries, the Centre of Excellence will share its findings in case studies and best practice projects. The centre is already working on PLM research projects with Boeing, DaimlerChrysler, and Eli Lilly and Company.

As founding members of the centre, IBM and Dassault Systèmes are donating PLM solutions, including the full suite of IBM PLM Solutions developed by Dassault Systèmes: Catia, for digital creation and engineering; Enovia, for product data and lifecycle management and decision support; and Smarteam, for product lifecycle management; along with Delmia, a Dassault Systèmes solution for digital manufacturing and production.

IBM has also given Purdue a Shared University Research Award to outfit the centre with IBM xSeries and pSeries eServers and Intellistation workstations.

For more information contact Igal Filipovski, CDC, 011 786 3516, igal@cdcza.co.za, www.cdcza.co.za, www.ibm.com, www.3ds.com