CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
23 August 2007
Implementation Investments
Snecma Services Aviation Maintenance Flies with Seemage
Snecma Services ( http://www.snecma-services.com/ ), a subsidiary of the Safran Group, offers a wide range of services to its aviation customers such as training, engine and equipment maintenance, engine fleet management, parts repair, production of technical documentation and more. In order to improve its jet engine maintenance curriculum, the company's training center in Melun-Villaroche, France has selected SeemageT to create high-quality training materials for use at the training center.
Snecma Services offers a broad range of training, from maintenance courses to instruction in complete aircraft engine assembly and disassembly. In addition, Snecma Services' own staff is educated in Melun-Villaroche. The 20 members of the training center provide training for 1200 trainees per year on average who come from approximately 100 different airline companies. Because of the large number of students and the critical nature of the curriculum, Seemage was the natural choice to ensure both consistency and accuracy in the drawings, animations and other materials used in the courses.
Innovations in training
The center's managers have been using Seemage since September, 2006 to produce technical documentation and maintenance procedures directly from 3D CAD models, ensuring up-to-date learning materials and the ability to make changes in those materials quickly.
"We wanted to develop a new, more interactive program of courses which required lots of 2D/3D animation and therefore extensive use of digital mock-ups. With this objective in mind, we tested several solutions. The ergonomics, graphic performance and highly satisfactory rendering of Seemage were of primary importance in determining our choice," says Laurent Dussillols, Training Development Manager, Snecma Services.
Because the training center's mission is education, any system for producing educational materials had to be easy for the center's staff to learn and use. "After only two days of training, Seemage was fully deployed and users were immediately productive," commented Laurent Dusillols.
Faster production of technical documentation and better educational content
"We have been able to develop new courses and enhance existing programs through the creation of 2D cross-sections and 3D illustrations of complete engines or individual parts. The design of animations also facilitates teaching so that it is possible to distinguish, for example, the different assembly or disassembly phases of an engine made up of thousands of components," adds Laurent Dusillols.
Seemage has rapidly accelerated the production of images, interactive animations and facilitated the introduction of digital mock-ups to a wider audience.
"In the past, when we wanted to produce 2D or 3D illustrations, we had to submit a request to a documentation service which sometimes added considerable delay. Even then, we sometimes had to make subsequent modifications to the content. It was not unusual for images to be passed back and forth several times before we had something that was suitable. Today, 2D or 3D illustrations are produced directly with Seemage using CATIA® CAD files. We save a considerable amount of time, while also improving the clarity of our course content," said Dussillols.
Once the students from airline companies saw how significantly the curriculum had been improved by using Seemage with 3D CAD models to directly create educational materials, they naturally wanted to incorporate the ability to create rich deliverables into their own operations. As a result of seeing Seemage in action at the learning center, Snecma Services subcontractors LCI and OKTAL have adopted the system, along with Snecma's Russian partner, NPO Saturn.
Seemage is holding a live webinar demonstrating its revolutionary technology on Wednesday, August 29, 2007. Register for this free webinar at http://www.3dmojo.com/webinar .
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