Healey Marque to be reborn with V5

According to Applied, UK Dassault Systemes Partner, the Healey 3000 Sports Car is to be re-born and built in the UK with the help of CATIA V5. HFI Automotive, an Anglo-American Consortium of engineers and investors has purchased the Dassault Systemes Catia V5 for use in the design and development of their new Healey 3000 sports car.



News on the latest developments with this seems to stop in late 2007, but according Applied, Healey Automobile Consultants (HAC), owners of the British sports cars brand "Healey", was purchased by HFI back in 2006. HAC was originally founded in 1955 by Donald and Geoffrey Healey. HFI's development of the new Healey 3000 is advancing with plans for their manufacturing base to be in the UK.

More details at AutoExpress and AutoCognition.

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VW commit to Teamcenter

Siemens PLM Software came up with some interesting news, that it recieved a major order from Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft for Teamcenter and its implementation. VW will use Teamcenter throughout its vehicle design and manufacturing process to "create transparency in its processes, so that obligatory information on product maturity, productivity and cost will be available at any and every point in the process."

The product data management project (known as K-PDM ) at Volkswagen is laid out over several years and will include up to 45,000 users in the final implementation stage. According to the press release, the essential goals are to establish "efficient and consistent processes within the global development and planning network through the entire product development process -- with K--PDM as central point for the product process within the Volkswagen group."

Contributing to the success of the program are several elements – accurate data and a synchronous supply for all brands, locations, individual sectors and levels, including suppliers and development partners. The K--PDM project also encompasses the existing IT landscape, which will be consolidated and the costs optimized. The goals will be achieved through a specific Volkswagen change project that is based on a unified company wide product data management solution.

VW states that "The decision to standardize on the Teamcenter portfolio was based on the software's ability to integrate and provide a consistent solution beyond PLM, the market maturity of the software and Siemens PLM Software's experience in the market."

The project will be executed over the next few years in committed car projects and different levels throughout the entire Volkswagen group. Following the successful completion of phase 0 and the "Go Live" decision in November 2007, Teamcenter will be used in production for future vehicle projects at Volkswagen and Audi.

This is an interesting insight into the work that organisations like VW and Audi are going through -- while many still don't understand the concept of PLM, this is changing and changing at a rapid rate. Call it PLM, call it PDM -- what matters is that organisation are using the wealth of tools avialable (from Siemens and its competition) to drive out inefficiencies and costs from their processes, by working more intelligently -- something we can all learn from.

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