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AIRBUS

Grid Win of the Month: Airbus improves design process, speeds products to market with IBM Grid solution

As one of the world's leading manufacturers of passenger and freight aircraft, Airbus relies heavily on computer modeling to "prototype" its new designs quickly and efficiently – increasing safety and functionality while slashing time-to-market. In the aerospace industry, the main process for testing the integrity of moving parts during the design process is called Clash analysis. Clash analysis, or interference checking, operates on a many-to-many basis requiring, for example, 2.5 billion comparisons for an aircraft with 50,000 moving parts. The computational power required for Clash analysis is staggering, and increasing both the accuracy of that analysis and the efficiency of the overall design process can make the difference between profit and loss in this highly competitive industry.

When Airbus needed to improve the accuracy of its design process, reduce Clash analysis time and shorten the horizon for new product development, they turned to IBM and Business Partners PLM and Platform LSF for a Grid solution. Using CATIA workstations running CATIA V5 and grid management software from Platform LSF, Airbus achieved truly phenomenal process improvements:
Slashing distributed Clash analysis time for one typical model from eight hours to 32 minutes;
Running a test they had previously halted after six days in only three days. Airbus can now complete 90% of this type of job in only six hours, receiving preliminary "indicator" results in just minutes; and
Eliminating prototype wastage by greatly improving accuracy at the design stage.

The net result: Airbus plays better, faster and more efficiently in the aerospace industry without a massive investment in an entirely new IT infrastructure.

This win is just another example of how a cross-disciplinary IBM team from STG Grid, BCS and S&D – working in concert with our Business Partners – can deliver real-world solutions to help our clients maintain the competitive edge.

posted by OttoKee @ 1:25 AM