IBM and Dassault Systèmes have announced that Ichikoh Industries, a manufacturer of automotive lamps and mirrors which supplies many car-makers worldwide, has deployed their PLM solutions in an innovative way. Ichikoh has used the PLM solutions to build a design navigation system and to establish a new modelling method, resulting in standardised design work and reductions in design time.

With a growing demand for new product designs, requiring advanced functions and more complicated data, Ichikoh Industries reviewed its design process, and chose IBM's PLM solution integrating Catia V5 knowledgeware functions, developed by Dassault Systèmes, to establish a new and innovative modelling method. With Catia V5, clients can effectively utilise design data throughout the production process - from first idea to final product - easily incorporating frequent design changes.

Ichikoh Industries has also built its own design navigation system that enables even inexperienced designers to utilise accumulated knowledge in their design work, while maintaining design quality and achieving greater operational efficiency. By implementing Catia V5, the company aims to reduce design time by up to 50%, thus accelerating time-to-market. The auto industry's leading 3D design solution has also allowed Ichikoh to work efficiently with different car-makers and collaborate on designs with other suppliers.

Ichikoh will also promote the standardisation of designs and parts, and develop a team design environment to unify its data based on systems such as Smarteam, which is another key part of the portfolio of IBM PLM solutions developed by Dassault Systèmes.

"In the automotive industry, development time has been reduced and high design quality is now increasingly important," says Toshiaki Yoshida, group leader, Information System Department of Ichikoh Industries. "It has become necessary to improve design databases and ensure faster, faultless designs to win against our competition. Our goal is to achieve the industry's fastest headlamp design time through collaboration with IBM and DS."

"Working with automotive OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), suppliers like Ichikoh are becoming more of an integral part of the automotive value net. To win against the competition, they must respond with speed to customer requests while maintaining profitability through an optimal price-quality ratio," says Junichi Takeuchi, director of PLM Solutions, IBM Asia Pacific. "Our PLM solutions can help them meet those challenges and start their journey to On-Demand."

"Ichikoh Industries adopted Catia V5 in order to realise design process innovation," says Christian Nardin, managing director of Dassault Systèmes Asia. "Implementing PLM will become increasingly important to auto suppliers, allowing them to respond rapidly to automakers' demands, which become more exacting every year. By reducing development time, they can not only reduce time-to-market, but also improve quality, and devote time to exploring alternative options, innovation and value-added tasks, thus fully leveraging the value of PLM."

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