World’s largest aircraft developed on Windchill

A complete “product information backbone” has been implemented for the 555 passenger super jumbo Airbus A380 aircraft, now under development, using Windchill PLM (product lifecycle management) software from developer PTC. “The implementation of the [software] is a major collaborative milestone, significantly advancing Airbus’ integration,” says Rolf Stefan Scheible, vice president of Airbus Concurrent Engineering. Airbus’ PRIMES (Product Relative Information Management Enterprise Systems) system is now allowing the organisation to manage product structure, change management, overall release processes, 2D and 3D visualisation, and connectivity to other systems, including its ERP and legacy systems. Installation now of an additional 600-plus seats in the UK brings the total to more than 2,000. The rest of the deployment is in France, Germany and Spain, in departments ranging from engineering, manufacturing and programme management, to non-specific design. In fact, the system is expected to increase to more than 5,000 seats in 2003 with a new project beginning this month. “Airbus required the advanced architecture, maturity and performance offered by Windchill, as well as its compatibility with other design and enterprise systems for resource planning, customer relationship management and scheduling,” says Jim Heppelmann, PTC executive vice president, software solutions, and chief technical officer. Windchill is used across the entire Airbus consortium, providing support for what has become the epitome of a multi-site organisation spanning several countries. The second phase will also allow management of the federated product structure across all sites, as well as effectivity calculations and complete and direct integration of the whole range of CAD/CAM tools at the sites. “We need to collaborate internally and externally,” says Paul Nash, Airbus Concurrent Engineering Project product configuration domain leader. “The fluidity of information provided by Windchill allows us to keep track of the aircraft product information required to design, manufacture, support and maintain a product, allowing rapid access across Europe and world-wide.” Airbus is also using 2,000 seats of PTC’s CADDS5 CAD software, which has been successfully used for the A340-500/600 programmes, representing more than 60% of the CAD seats in the A380 project.