IBM and Dassault Systemes - developers of the Catia range of CAD/CAM/CAE software - recently held a highly successful European Catia Forum (ECF) 2001 in Berlin, Germany.

Catia - the de facto standard in the automative, aerospace and many other industries - is widely used in Europe and throughout the world. A case in point is the fact that of the 11 competing Formula One teams competing in the F1 Grand Prix series, nine have designed either the car's chassis or engine, or both, using Catia. In addition, Toyota Motorsport, the final F1 entrant in the 2002 racing season, has developed and built its complete car, from the ground up, in CATIA. In South Africa, Catia is gaining more users all the time.

Much of the emphasis of ECF 2001 was on the launch of Version 5 Release 7 of Catia, which operates on a standard PC platform on both Windows NT/2000 and Unix platforms. Catia V5R7 incorporates considerable improvements to its existing products, and introduces 19 new products, bringing to 97 the total number of Catia V5 products, thereby making V5R7 a comprehensive solution for collaborative design across the entire supply chain, supporting large-scale deployments across all industries, in particular, automotive, aerospace, industrial machinery, consumer goods, electronics and shipbuilding. In addition, for the first time in the industry, the integration within the digital mock-up (DMU) of the engineering analysis results, allows the evaluation of the impact of part or assembly deformation under operational conditions within the entire digital mock-up.

V5R7 is a significant milestone for Catia electrical solutions, with the delivery of a fully integrated electromechanical suite of design tools for the first time. The solution spans a wide range of applications, from logical design to 3D physical definition, enabling, for example, wires harnesses to be integrated in the digital mock-up, around a unique V5 electrical database. This new version also includes advanced piping and tubing design applications which provide the tools required for the definition of fluid delivery systems (hydraulics, cooling, etc) across the industrial machinery, automotive, aerospace and shipbuilding industries.

Make innovation happen

The theme for ECF 2001 was design, collaborate and integrate to make innovation happen. In his welcome speech, President of Dassault Systemes, Bernard Charles pointed out that there are still many new inventions in the pipeline and Catia intends to be instrumental in designing new innovations. ECF 2001 brought together a dynamic mix of general sessions, user presentations, and workshops, along with a Technifair that displayed Catia related products and services offered by its partners. Also, for the first time, ECF 2001 featured a new training academy - a comprehensive four-hour hands-on training experience, that gave users in-depth knowledge of Catia and related products.

The user presentations at ECF 2001 featured speakers from France, Switzerland, Belgium, UK and the US. IBM and Dassault Systemes also presented its latest strategies, news and information about Catia and product lifecycle management solutions, and how companies are successfully implementing such solutions. ECF 2001 also marked the 20th anniversary of the partnership between IBM and Dassault Sytemes which was celebrated at a gala dinner during the conference.

Included are a few pictures highlighting the proceedings at ECF 2001.