Elysium Inc., was recently approved as a certified JT bi-directional translation provider for the Daimler Supply Chain. Elysium now provides Daimler AG with the official CATIA V5 to NX translation tool within the automaker’s PLM2015 project.
The JT format is a leading standard within the world of 3D data sharing. JT file version 9.5 is specified by Daimler as one of the approved delivery formats for supplier data collaboration. Elysium’s JT translator can be integrated into the SWAN portal, which helps facilitate supplier integration and, specifically, the exchange of high-fidelity geometry in support of supplier Multi-CAD environments.
“Supply chains continue to rely on multiple in-house CAD/CAE programs and struggle to meet the native-to-native interoperability preferences of their different OEM clients,” says Ken Tashiro, vice president of Elysium Inc. “As world markets see new, innovative partnerships born, even among old competitors, the modeling data that these OEM-supplier alliances create must move quickly and accurately in every direction.
“JT is very common in the global automotive industry and emerging alliances, and it’s on the increase now in Europe,” says Tashiro. “The German automotive sector strikes me as particularly collaborative in nature. The introduction of JT there is good news for those that emphasize close teamwork and innovation.”
Elysium has supported the JT standard for many years through the company’s Japanese customer base, including translation and usage at Honda. Elysium’s JT translator has been ranked Number 1 in industry benchmarks for bi-directional capability. Daimler recently benchmarked, tested and certified the Elysium JT translator as compliant with its quality standards.
The Daimler requirement for JT encompasses downstream use cases that include digital mock-up, publishing, assembly configuration confirmation, interference checking, design-in-context, space utilization, CAE and MFG simulation, and other functions.
In addition, the Daimler Smaragd-PDM system requires special metadata and attribute mapping in order for suppliers to successfully upload to the automaker.
To meet these challenges, Elysium customized the existing JT technology to match Daimler requirements for exact geometry and visualization needs. Manufacturing and process planning requirements were also met via extensive tuning of Elysium’s robust Product Manufacturing Information (PMI) support, which includes dimensions, annotations and symbols.
Elysium JT software incorporates the exact extraction of CATIA geometry and manufacturing information via the CATIA CAA toolkit. The CATIA 3D data then undergoes automated healing to provide for an accurate representation within the JT format, guaranteeing precision form-fit-function and downstream reuse within Daimler or other environments.
“JT is the best of two worlds—lightweight visualization for large assemblies and exact geometry and master data for manufacturing with the same tolerances as the original CAD model format,” says Tashiro. “JT also addresses much of industry’s concern for uniformity of standards and their implementation with an open format. This helps account for its rising popularity among mechanical application vendors worldwide.”
