CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
3 October 2005
Implementation Investments
Volvo Car Corporation Adopts Synopsys' Saber Harness for Automotive Platform Designs
Synopsys, Inc. announced that Volvo Car Corporation has successfully designed and developed the wiring harness systems for the XC90 platform, as well as other widely used Volvo platforms, using Synopsys' Saber® Harness integrated with CATIA® from Dassault Systèmes. Based on this success, Volvo has now verified the new integration between Saber Harness and CATIA V5, and will consequently develop future platforms on the combined design environment.
Saber is used extensively for system design and verification in the automotive and aerospace industries. The integration was developed in close collaboration between Synopsys and Dassault Systèmes through the CATIA Application Architecture (CAA) V5 Adopter Program to provide improved electro-mechanical design resulting in lowered cost and improved reliability. The integration enables engineers at major automotive and aerospace companies to exchange information between Saber's wire harness design and electrical simulation tool suites and CATIA, which is used for the physical design of the wire harness. The coordination of design data, including the complexities of Variants and Options in both systems, helps customers reduce time-to-market and improve quality in vehicle designs.
"The integration between Saber Harness and CATIA V5 with the new Saber Variant and Option function in CATIA is an essential element in our electro-mechanical design flow for digital mockups." said Sören Börnstedt, principal system engineer at Volvo Car Corporation. "Saber's integration into CATIA V5 is the best integration between the electrical and mechanical domains that we have ever experienced. Saber Harness and the mechanical integration allow us to shorten our lead times and cut costs in our future platform designs."
Saber Harness lets engineers create, characterize, simulate and analyze the electrical behavior of the wire harness throughout the vehicle to determine the effects on system performance. Saber Harness enables true characterization of Variants and Options, eliminates system conflicts and redundant entries, and ensures that the complete harness structure is correct before it is passed to engineers using CATIA. The tight integration between the two tools reduces manufacturing cost and time-to-production resulting in improved time-to-market and lower overall costs.
"We have been working together with Volvo over several years to develop the best harness design and analysis tool on the market," said Mick O'Brien, vice president and general manager, Electromechanical Simulation & Design at Synopsys. "Now, through the close integration of CATIA V5 with our Saber Harness tool suite, our customers can pass information between the logical and mechanical domains and iterate between the two to ensure that the electrical system is designed and implemented correctly the first time. Combining our efforts with Dassault through the CAA Partnership has enabled us to provide the tight integration our customers need to deliver quality wire harness platforms on schedule."
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