CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive

6 August 2007

Implementation Investments

Schefenacker USA Delivers Faster and Enhances Quality With Dassault Systemes

Dassault Systemes ( DS ) has announced that Schefenacker Vision Systems USA, a Tier One supplier of automotive mirror and lighting systems, has achieved significant benefits through the implementation of CATIA and ENOVIA SmarTeam solutions at its Marysville, Mich. facility. With Dassault Systemes' PLM solutions, Schefenacker has been able to reduce its 3D product geometry development hours by over 31 percent, reduce the cost impact of its design and engineering changes by 38 percent, and bring more programs to market with fewer resources.

Schefenacker's goal was to reduce time spent on geometry creation and modification, to spend more time on enhancing the quality of its products through analysis tools and respond more quickly to customer requests. It also wanted better management of and access to product data.

"We were confident that CATIA, based upon its functionality, had the ability to help us become more efficient," said Gary Sinelli, director of engineering, Schefenacker Vision Systems USA. "Additionally, through the time saved in geometry creation and management, with CATIA we were able to innovate and develop mirror components that are 18% lighter yet more robust than previous models."

"CATIA's ability to capture an organization's knowledge base has a huge effect in the reduction of design and engineering hours along with the elimination of downstream changes," said Bob Brincheck, Dassault Systemes Automotive Business Unit Director. "Another often overlooked benefit is the fact that there are numerous tools built on Dassault Systemes architecture for full integration with CATIA in the product development process. This greatly influences design early in the development process."

With CATIA any change in a design specification is automatically updated in the related geometry and across all disciplines to ensure that anyone involved in the process is working with the most current data. Using ENOVIA SmarTeam for storage provides a native environment to access and manage CATIA data including standard features and component libraries within Schefenacker's product development process.

About Schefenacker

Schefenacker Vision Systems is the leading global supplier of high- quality, advanced technology in exterior and interior mirror systems, and a supplier of rear and signal lighting systems for automobiles worldwide. It is part of Schefenacker AG, a world leader in automotive mirror systems, lighting systems and audio systems with operations in Australia, England, France, Germany, Hungary, India, Japan, Korea, Slovenia, Spain and the USA.

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