IBM and Dassault Systemes Release New CATIA Version

IBM and Dassault Systemes announced the availability of CATIA Version 5 Release 9 (V5R9), the leading three-dimensional product life cycle management (3D PLM) solution for product design, creation, simulation and optimization. As part of the global 3D PLM offering, CATIA V5R9 represents a major milestone in the PLM space by delivering the set of business practices for breakthrough product morphing. Available worldwide on July 26, 2002, CATIA V5R9 delivers a total of 129 products - 11 new products and over major 87 product enhancements. "Product morphing" is a set of state-of-the-art business practices enabled by CATIA V5's unique knowledgeware, relational design, process integration and PPR infrastructure, which automatically combine existing design definitions and/or templates, with new specifications to drive the regeneration of fully-engineered derivative product definitions. By maximizing reuse of existing knowledge and experience, morphing gives customers the ability to reduce cycle times and increase their market responsiveness. "The difference between success and failure in new products is more and more dependent on their innovation content." said Dominique Florack, Executive Vice President of Dassault Systemes. "The paradox in today's development processes is that most of the money and effort is invested revisiting decisions that were made for previous programs. Struggling for percentage improvements does not solve this paradox. Morphing-based processes eliminate this redundancy, leveraging digital knowledge models that adapt to new specifications and automate routine decision-making. Since knowledgeware is natively implemented within the V5 infrastructure, we now can work seriously with customers on turning dreams such as the "one-year car" into a reality."