When is DaimlerChrysler Going to Migrate to CATIA V5?
by Scott L. Baker, DaimlerChrysler Corporation

"When is DaimlerChrysler going to implement CATIA V5?" was a question asked by several attendees at the Fall COE Conference. Today, there is no simple satisfactory answer to that question. With the complexity of issues and systems involved in a large corporation such as DaimlerChrysler (DCX), a simple answer is not possible. Currently, at least three major studies are underway to answer this complex question, at the Chrysler Group in Auburn Hills and at DaimlerChrysler Stuttgart. Let's explore some of the issues.

For starters, we in the Chrysler Group, are trying to determine the technical and process advantages of moving from V4 to V5. Presently, we have approximately 1.6 million V4 models with all of their special features stored in the consistent V4 data management tools, such as Chrysler CDM and VPM. Also, the rest of the Chrysler Group downstream functions have been working for years to implement the "CATIA Pipeline," inside the corporation as well as into our supplier community. The question at hand is not just when, but also why should we convert to V5 models? Do we convert all models? If we don't convert all models, what effect will this have on maintaining and servicing vehicles? Although we have listened to all of the benefits of parametric design and data integration, what is the real value or return on investment, to convert to this new technology? Making this change just because it is the latest technology is probably the worst possible reason to convert, due to workload considerations. Our focus must be very clear; we need to develop a strategy for change, which is targeted toward making better cars and trucks with higher quality, lower cost, and a more enjoyable ownership experience. Deploying anything that does not directly relate to these objectives is simply a waste of time for our customers and shareholders.

Secondly, since the Chrysler Group is so supplier dependent, to make a change, we must assure that the extended enterprise is capable and ready to move with us. Even if we were able to move all of our internal resources, we would still need to assure that the supplier community could supply the appropriate data, which to date would seem to be a mixture of V4 and V5 data. This would also effect the data management tools and supplier networks. How can we maximize some of these tools to improve communication of critical information to our suppliers, make our suppliers more efficient, and ultimately meet the above stated objectives? Moving our company to a level of technology is one thing, but moving multiple companies with maximum benefit is a much bigger issue.

A new complexity which we here in the Chrysler Group are not use to, is the association with our global partners. During the merger negotiations with Daimler Benz, there was a lot of reported potential for shared synergies. These synergies were really based on the concept of using similar suppliers and sharing components. As we have moved forward, the reality today is that to share these components and suppliers, we as a corporation will need to share a common design language. Even at the time of the merger, luckily, we knew that both of our previous corporations used CATIA as our CAD tool. But we quickly found out, for a lot of good reasons, our two independent companies were on different versions of CATIA, which started to conflict with our ability to communicate and achieve the previously advertised cost savings. Obviously, every effort has been made to rectify this situation. But now, after all of this hard work, the issues stated above must be considered for both the Chrysler Group and Daimler for any migration plan. Add to this, our new partner since the original merger, Mitsubishi Motors, and the degree of difficulty continues to increase. One last point to consider is the continued efforts to assure that multiple languages, cultures, and data availability across multiple time zones are being accommodated.

Even with the above issues I would like to assure you that multiple activities are underway at DaimlerChrysler to develop a comprehensive plan to accommodate migration to V5 technologies. As an example, approximately 200 seats of CATIA V5 are already installed at various DCX locations to evaluate such things as parametric design, knowledge based engineering, DMU for visualization, design synergies, interactions with data management systems such as VPM, and integration with legacy systems. Many of us feel that with all of the efforts already under way, very shortly DaimlerChrysler will know why, how, and when we will be migrating to CATIA V5 and other V5 technologies.