Toyota signs multi-million pound deal for 3D PLM

Japanese vehicle manufacturing giant Toyota last month signed a multi-million pound strategic deal with IBM and Dassault Systemes to build a PLM (product lifecycle management) collaboration software system for its entire vehicle development process. Based on Dassault’s version 5 PLM suite – Catia for design, Enovia for product data management and collaboration, Delmia for simulation and digital manufacturing – the software will enable Toyota to capture, share and re-use product information across its manufacturing site and its global supplier network. Denis Senpere, Dassault’s vp Enovia & Smarteam European operations, commented: “Toyota has been using its own, internally-developed 3D CAD/CAM system called ‘Togo’, [PTC’s] Pro-Engineer for engine design work, and Delmia for process engineering and simulation. “The priority for Toyota now is to replace the Togo system [around 5,000 seats in all], then replace the 300 or so Pro-Engineer seats. “In three to five years, Toyota wants to complete the replacement of Togo,” added Senpere. And that means IBM Dassault should net around £10k per seat across 5,000 users – that’s around £50m, without taking into account the Enovia PDM seats. Senpere reckons there could be another four seats of Enovia for every Catia one. That makes this a huge deal worth hundreds of millions of pounds - easily the biggest deal for IBM since the Dassault Aviation ‘win’ a few years back. Senpere continued: “The maintenance costs for Togo were becoming too high… There was too much hard coding required, it wasn’t all synchronised properly, and it was becoming difficult to support with new technology [eg. workstations].” According to Senpere, the ‘triggers’ for the PLM deal were IBM’s acquisition of EADS MatraDatavision three years ago, the systems integration and design consultancy specialist, who formed an integral part of the software development team behind the Togo system. And the acquisition of robotics simulation software specialist Deneb, whose software Toyota had also been using for some time. But what about Toyota’s enterprise (ERP) software. And where does this fit in to its PLM strategy? Senpere: “Toyota has been using a home-grown ERP system for some time now. But it recognises it must integrate this with our PLM suite to gain maximum benefits… To them that means reducing vehicle cycle times from 36 months down to 12 months.” He says that Toyota will use systems integrator Nihon Unisys to carry out this integration work and that the objective for Toyota is, “True associativity between engineering, manufacturing and the customer using [integrated] software that enables late engineering design changes [eg styling] triggered by manufacturing.”