IBM and Dassault Systemes, in conjunction with Boeing Corporation, have announced that they are deploying an e-business product development solution that gives the aircraft manufacturer a first-strike advantage in its efforts to win the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) contract.

The initial project began twelve months ago, and includes the implementation of new IBM servers, workstations and DB2 Universal Database, along with CATIA computer-aided design solutions and ENOVIA product lifecycle management solutions from Dassault Systemes. The consulting and implementation portion of the project was conducted simultaneously, and included training for Boeing designers, engineers and manufacturing personnel.

CATIA and ENOVIAVPM running on IBM RS/6000 servers and workstations produced the infrastructure Boeing required to deploy a more efficient e-business environment for the JSF program. This enabled the company to simultaneously develop the different JSF design variants required for the United States Air Force, Marine Corps and Navy, and the United Kingdom Royal Navy.

"The integration processes between CATIA and ENOVIAVPM allowed us to rapidly mature our JSF designs," said Jim O'Neill, Air Vehicle Director, Boeing JSF. "These capabilities, along with our integrated One Team approach, result in a highly mature aircraft that meets all of our customers' requirements."

"In the past twelve months Boeing has demonstrated to the United States Government the highly effective product data management capabilities of ENOVIAVPM that drive commonality across the multi-mission fighter, which is essential to the success of the JSF program. Within the next few months, Boeing intends to upgrade the JSF product development solution to squeeze out even more costs and timesavings. The solution upgrade will make the JSF program more efficient by integrating the design, build and support processes on the Dassault Systemes V5 architecture, which is based on state-of-the-art technologies and standards, including STEP, Java, CORBA and OLE," he concluded.

IBM

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geoffb@za.ibm.com

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