Alenia Aeronautica Signs $4.5 Million Contract withIBM For ENOVIAPM to Support Process...

TURIN, Italy--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 23, 1998--Alenia Aeronautica, a leading manufacturer of military and civil aircraft, IBM(a) and ENOVIA(b) Corp. announce the signature of a $4.5 million, four-year contract with IBM for ENOVIAPM(b) (ProductManager) and associated services. Alenia Aeronautica will

The decision was made after extensive evaluation of ENOVIAPM key functions such as configuration management, computer-aided design integration, workflow, data modeling and bill of materials requirements. ENOVIAPM will provide common access to entire data sets which define physical and functional characteristics of a particular aircraft. It will also support multi-disciplinary teams including design, engineering, manufacturing, procurement, customer support and others in their efforts to develop new aircraft design in a concurrent environment.

"To support our competitiveness, we are re-engineering our processes to transform the way we do business," says Giuseppe Ombra, chief engineering and PDM project manager at Alenia. "Our product development strategy is based on the concurrent engineering approach, and for this reason we see a PDM system as a fundamental tool. After reviewing the products in the marketplace we concluded that ENOVIAPM is the correct choice for us."

Alenia Aeronautica intends to implement full capabilities of ENOVIAPM over time as new projects are started. Initially, ENOVIAPM services will be used in the Eurofighter project to manage data exchange with other European partner companies supporting the European Fighter Aircraft.

Stephen Murdoch, Global PDM II Business Director for IBM, adds, "We are extremely pleased with Alenia's decision to use ENOVIAPM. With the ENOVIA products and IBM implementation and consulting services we can help companies get to market faster with newer products. Using the ENOVIA software infrastructure means companies can digitally simulate new product development, along with necessary resources and even the physical manufacturing facility in an integrated and much faster manner."

ENOVIA Chief Executive Officer, Joel Lemke, says, "ENOVIAPM is the leading application suite in the Product Data Management category and is ideal for complex aerospace development and manufacturing requirements. It is a critical part of the ENOVIA Corporation's total efforts to bring leading PDM II solutions to customers in every manufacturing category and help them gain a competitive advantage."

ENOVIAPM (ProductManager) is an enterprise-wide, scaleable PDM system which runs as a client-server application on a wide range of computing environments across large servers, UNIX workstations, PCs, networks and archiving systems. ProductManager enables manufacturers to streamline the design and manufacturing process and reduce both design costs and cycle times. It acts as a data vault, providing a single source of product information and offer users fast and easy access to the most current data wherever the data resides. ProductManager uses object oriented technology to deliver prepackaged, yet flexible functions that are easily adapted to a company's business processes. It also offers an intuitive graphical user interface plus extensive tailoring capabilities for users and a powerful customization toolkit for extending the product. ENOVIAPM, in combination with ENOVIAVPM also developed by ENOVIA Corp., provide the complementary functions required for the PDM II market.

Product Development Management (PDM II), as defined by leading consultants, encompasses two domains - Virtual Product Development Management (VPDM) and Product Data Management (PDM). VPDM addresses those activities in the product and process development process where innovation and creativity are key, in order to develop and optimize new products and thus increase market size. PDM supplies services for cost and process control to bring new products to market earlier, resulting in increased market share. Responding to the new PDM II market opportunity, IBM and Dassault Systemes announced in February 1998 a new strategic alliance where Dassault Systemes launched a new wholly owned company, ENOVIA(b) Corp, located in Charlotte, NC to develop integrated PDM II solutions, respectively named ENOVIAPM and ENOVIAVPM. IBM created two new worldwide organizations -- one to market and sell these PDM II products; and the other to provide business transformation, consulting and implementation services.

Alenia Aeronautica, Finmeccanica Group, is the major Italian aircraft maker and one of the most advanced aerospace companies in the world. Based primarily in Torino and Naples, Alenia produces components for both military aircraft (EF2000, AMX, Tornado, G222/C27J) and civilian aircraft (ATR, MD11, MD80, MD95, B767, B777, A321 and Falcon2000). It has gross revenues of 1.8 billion Italian Lire with 7,000 employees.

Dassault Systemes is a worldwide recognized leader in CAx and PDM II markets. CATIA-CADAM(b) Solutions with Deneb, the digital manufacturing company, address the CAD/CAM/CAE process-centric market. Through a unique strategic partnership, CATIA-CADAM Solutions are marketed, distributed and supported by IBM worldwide. This unique partnership is now extended to PDM II solutions. SolidWorks, a Dassault Systemes company, addresses the CAD design-centric market, with its flagship native Windows NT product and its dedicated distribution channel. In the network-computing environments, the Java-based CATWEB(b) product line provides a graphical window into native enterprise product data. For the PDM II market, ENOVIA Corp., a Dassault Systemes company, provides with its ENOVIAVPM and ENOVIAPM product lines a new multi-CAD collaborative and innovative environment for virtual product and process modeling and management across the extended enterprise.

IBM is the leader in creating, developing and manufacturing the world's most advanced information technologies, including computer systems, software, networking systems, storage devices and microelectronics. IBM translates these advanced technologies into value for its customers through its professional solutions and services businesses worldwide.

For more information please see the following Web site : http://www.enovia.com

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