Intercim LLC, a purveyor of manufacturing operations management software, and Dassault Systèmes, a leader in product lifecycle management tools, today announced a memorandum of understanding that extends an existing technology integration partnership. Under the terms of the agreement, the companies will integrate Intercim’s Pertinence Powered by Velocity software with Dassault’s V6 platform to create a Web-based PLM/MES suite for the aerospace and defense industry, bringing the two technologies together in the quest for the so-called digital factory.
The two companies began collaborating in 2005 after Boeing — a mutual customer — requested their help in eliminating paper from its shop floor. The solution, delivered three years ago, was one-way communication from the PLM system to the MES to provide 3D work instructions to a tablet PC carried by workers on the factory floor. That integration enabled end users to view work instructions tied to a 3D design of the part.
Today’s agreement represents phase two, according to Intercim officials, through which the two companies will extend the PLM value chain to include part delivery, manufacturing, and on-site maintenance. The memorandum of understanding, which was outlined in March prior to today’s detailed announcement, will add new applications to provide a closed loop between the MES and PLM systems.
The first module is expected to be available later this year as part of Dassault’s V5 PLM platform, with a complete integrated system following in 2009 in the V6 platform, which will use a services-oriented architecture.
Functionality will include visibility and traceability for all manufacturing stakeholders of shop floor execution with real-time 3D access to the “as-built” product information; real-time visibility across the extended enterprise of all production assets within the 3D production model, with immediate corrective action validation in the virtual model prior to implementation; and increased knowledge-sharing among shop floor, product, and manufacturing engineering workers, with a common view of the virtual product and the production system.
“The idea is to have a 3D model populated with manufacturing data so that at any stage of production a manager can be shown a [particular] aircraft … along with any active non-conformance [issues] or parts that were installed in the last 24 hours,” said Romain LaVault, Intercim’s vice president of sales and business development, in an interview.
The Intercim and Dassault alliance will specifically address the aerospace and defense market, which accounts for 80% of Intercim’s business. However, Intercim is considering how to extend this capability to other industry segments, including semiconductor, automotive, and even life sciences.
The closed-loop process will also help manufacturers implement rules pertaining to safety, quality, yield improvement, and lean manufacturing that can be shared with product design engineers, officials said.
The work being done by Intercim and Dassault — which will also include a virtual layout of the plant as well as the product — complements a similar partnership Dassault inked with Rockwell Automation last year that ties PLM to controllers as a first step toward fulfilling the vision of the digital factory.
“We do need to interface with the automation layer,” LaVault explained. “If you have a 3D model of a product you need to build, we can push the model as part of the work instructions to the CNC machine.”
According to officials, the most important element in the ability to create these integrated applications is the Web-based SOA layer that enables the delivery of “light” applications, whereby a user can log in and see a portion of the 3D model instead of wading through a cumbersome client/server application.
“Today, much of this work is done with spreadsheets,” LaVault said, “because [companies] don’t have a comprehensive view that can also filter out the things you don’t want to see.”