Making CATIA V5 Your Core CAD System
By Dan Smith, Executive Vice President, PLM Solutions, RAND Worldwide

As CATIA users, I assume that most of us believe that it is the best CAD system available today. However, that support may not be nearly enough to convince the powers that be - from the CAD manager to senior corporate executives - to make CATIA the organization's core system. Take the example of the automotive supplier that may have a few seats of V4 or V5, but whose primary system is UG, SDRC, Solidworks or even, Pro/ENGINEER. For them, making CATIA V5 their key product development and design system may seem like a huge transition. Add to this the oft-quoted truism so many of us have heard in business, as in life is: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." The simple fact is, in the world of CAD - and, for that matter, with most aspects of IT - there is a long tradition of holding on to old core systems long after they have ceased to drive productivity.

Pain Points of Outdated CAD

With computer and Internet technology changing rapidly, systems can undergo generations of evolution in just a few years, and CAD can become outdated very quickly. This saddles users with functionality that worked fine when it was first introduced but now lacks the benefits of feature enhancements and new versions to keep up with latest advancements, thus blocking the organization from recent productivity improvements and often rendering systems incompatible with others in the supply chain and partner companies that have moved on to newer systems, like V5. Also, over time the number of incremental integrations made to add on various application packages increases, along with the difficulty of maintaining and supporting such a patchwork system.

The end result of these problems is not only slower performance and less process efficiency but also increasingly higher operational and maintenance costs for the system. After a few years, potential savings in these expenses alone often are sufficient to justify moving on to a newer CAD system.

More broadly, older CAD systems lock a company into processes and approaches of the past. Most were developed before the Internet and have been adapted in one way or another to use some of this technology. But newer systems have been architected to make the best use of the Internet in a company's operation. Also, older systems are oriented solely toward expert engineering users and lack the flexibility and ease of use for non-technical personnel in areas such as marketing, sales, purchasing, and maintenance. Because of these limitations, older CAD systems are not as well adapted to leading-edge product lifecycle management (PLM) applications that depend on less complex system operation (e.g., fewer mouse clicks and friendlier menu structures) for less-frequent users and a greater ability to share information between different groups - often dispersed around the world.

Hanging onto an Orphaned System

Despite the escalating problems of using an older CAD system as their primary solution (especially those that may no longer be adequately supported by the vendor), many companies continue to do so. People are generally accustomed to working with the program in their daily jobs, and core features they use most often are viewed as good enough to get tasks completed, much as they have been before. In some cases, sticking to an older CAD system as the core technology is done not so much out of complacency but rather a genuine belief in the vendor's claims that the software is in the process of being re-architected. Many companies have been strung along like this for years, paying outrageous maintenance costs for outdated software with the promise of better days ahead when new products are launched. Unfortunately, the new products either fail to materialize or turn out to be the same old software with slightly modified packaging. These trusting users believed the tales spun by aggressive vendors and ultimately got burned by the experience.

In most cases, individual users of any CAD system are fiercely loyal and will not willingly go through the necessary retraining and process reorientation unless the migration to a newer system is mandated. In most cases, the move comes after maintenance costs become exorbitant, greater delays in getting work done are no longer acceptable, incompatibility problems start isolating a company from its supply chain, and people outside the engineering department cannot easily access key data they need to get their work done collaboratively. Generally, the impetus for switching core CAD systems comes from management, either through a desire to stop these problems because they are becoming unacceptable or a foresight in avoiding them before they cause severe damage to the company.

Making the Switch

In changing core systems, (or, for that matter, primary CAD vendors), many companies assume the best approach is to go through an evaluation similar to what they probably did in originally choosing their existing software: contact either product representatives or "independent" vendors individually, make checklists of features and functions, and run benchmarks of a typical company application.

Such an assessment was used in the past when CAD systems could be easily compared based on the number of mouse clicks needed to draw a line or construct a fillet, for example. But today, geometric construction is only part of the overall role of CAD in the enterprise. Companies now need answers to many other questions: Is the CAD program tightly integrated with other software such as simulation and PDM? Does it make the best use of the Internet and collaboration for sharing data? How well is the software architected to take advantage of future technology advances? The fact is that the answers to these questions will lead most objective evaluators to the same place: CATIA V5 stands above the others.

Getting Help

One approach worth considering if you want to get an independent opinion is to work with one of the few total solutions providers, which represents a broad range of technologies, provides objective assessment of client needs, focuses on business priorities, and has extensive experience in implementation procedures and industry best practices.

For example, through working with a number of large and mid-size companies in Europe and North America, RAND Worldwide - the largest of these total solution providers - has developed a set of best practices for helping companies to leverage their CAD systems. These best practices leverage lessons learned through other implementations and provide a roadmap customized to the specific requirements of each company.

RAND recommends that any transition - whether from V4 to V5 or to making CATIA the core system, should have specific goals: a smooth and financially viable transition, preservation of product development during transition, and implementation of the most efficient use of the new technology.

While the transition should be done at a low cost and with a low impact on the organization, it is important that the foundation for a very efficient and productive environment is created for many years to come. It is not enough to simply use the new core system with the same design processes that have been in place for years. In this case, it will be a costly transition with few benefits. To establish such an efficient and productive environment, the transition process should be broken into six steps: document the "as-is" environment, define specific customer requirements, integrate the requirements of other related sites, develop new processes and best practices, perform a pilot project using these processes to test and fine-tune the environment, and finally move to a full implementation across the enterprise.

Focus First on Business Goals, Then Technology

Rather than starting off concentrating narrowly on CAD technology issues, the most experienced systems integrators strongly suggest that companies begin with an analysis of the business challenges - and opportunities - they want to address. This generally means assessing the work and interaction of multiple disciplines within the organization - engineering, of course, as well as marketing, manufacturing, testing, inspection, purchasing, and customer services, for example. In many cases, CAD is only a portion of the overall operation the client may want to coordinate and integrate with a range of technologies to establish an overall PLM environment. Many clients, particularly small and mid-size companies, may be reluctant to label their system with such a trendy acronym but find that this probably best describes what they're ultimately aiming for. Again, this assessment will almost always bring objective evaluators to the realization that CATIA V5 is the only system that can meet these requirements.

In this evaluation, RAND performs an "as-is" analysis of the company's exiting system and workflow, determines a "to-be" way of doing business they're shooting for, and then maps out the people, processes, and technology to get there. By listening to its customers, RAND has developed a framework that enables them to provide customized solutions for PLM implementations and improvements. The company works closely with its customers as a business partner, incrementally building trust and providing intensive services based on client needs. RAND can optimize specific business processes, evaluate the return on the effort, and then move to other areas of the business. In this way, they have a proven, practical methodology for building an integrated system with all the pieces working together most effectively for companies to reach their particular business objectives.

Amongst the numerous reasons that RAND Worldwide has repeatedly suggested to companies that they chose CATIA V5 as the core technology for meeting their mission critical business goals is that it is not only the best CAD system - and one that gets better with each revision - but it is also the only system architected for the Internet, not merely adapted to it. As you likely know, CATIA has been Dassault Systèmes' flagship brand since the company's founding in 1981, the same year that Dassault inked a strategic partnership with IBM to distribute CATIA worldwide. In 1999, CATIA became the most popular product development system in the world through the wide adoption of the digital mockup process by the market.

Initially focused on large enterprises, CATIA has evolved to a scalable solution and is now also becoming a leader for small-and medium sized companies, which can take advantage of a simple and intuitive user interface that optimizes productivity and reduces training time.

With CATIA V5, users simulate the entire range of industrial design processes from the initial concept to product design, analysis, assembly and maintenance. Full integration of all CATIA V5 applications is based on a common data model. The software has functionality for mechanical design, shape design, styling, product synthesis, equipment and systems engineering, NC manufacturing, analysis and simulation, and industrial plant design using an open and component-based architecture, CAA V5.

In contrast to older engineering-centric CAD systems focused mainly on expediting design tasks, V5 is architected to focus more broadly on the wider scope of issues encompassing product lifecycle management. Companies thus making the transition from departmental programs such as concurrent engineering to expanded corporate-wide lifecycle management initiatives find it advantageous to move from previous-generation parametric design programs to the PLM-centric V5 solution.

Business Value

CATIA is based on the latest technology, shares data more effectively with other applications, runs faster, handles more complex designs, and generally makes life easier for users. Still, in themselves, even these and the innumerable other features of the technology may not provide sufficient business justification for making it a company's core system. Rather, the decision to do so absolutely must be based on definite business value, benefits that will increase profitability and improve the company's long-term strength.

The benefit highest on most companies list - and the one most easily quantified - of switching core systems is a financial justification based on cost reduction through greater operational efficiency, lower maintenance costs, fewer data-transfer errors, and less time needed for system administration and training. Moving from an older UNIX system to one based on Microsoft Windows, for example, gives the company a homogeneity that significantly lowers IT costs and requires less training for users. Lower costs in these and other many areas add up to an overall significant annual cost savings that generally more than justifies the investment in a short time.

Process compression is another critical benefit of a new, integrated system like CATIA V5. Automated functions and seamless operation between packages enable work to be completed in a fraction of the time needed with older systems. In many cases, tasks that used to take eight steps, for example, may now be completed in two or three. Moreover, accuracy is improved, so even more time is saved in not having to verify information and correct mistakes along the way. On-line automatic configurators, for example, provide a level of automation to customers, suppliers, and sales people to enter their requirements and have the required design generated by the system quickly for a wide range of products. This not only allows companies to save time and expense but to rethink their business models and orient processes toward high revenue-generating areas.

A major benefit of having V5 as the core system is its capacity to handle attribute data that can be leveraged in product lifecycle stages beyond engineering. CATIA's path-tracing capabilities enable manufacturability and serviceability studies to be performed, for example, where users can perform simulations to see if parts can be assembled efficiently on the shop floor and later adequately accessed for maintenance in the field. Also, failure-rate data associated with a CATIA model can be used to trigger alerts when preventative maintenance should occur, and part cost data as an attribute may be used in determining overall product expenses for manufacturing as well as long-term maintenance.

Advanced functionality in CATIA V5 also provides companies the capacity to take advantage of new industry initiatives such as PLM, for example, to better coordinate the activities of dispersed groups, operate on a more global basis, derive more revenue from downstream phases of the product lifecycle such as product support, communicate better throughout the supply chain, and otherwise transform the business to an extended enterprise. Through today's collaboration features that enable product teams to share data and ideas more readily, V5 also facilitates better, more innovative designs. This allows the company to launch winning products sooner, clearly define their brand value, improve customer satisfaction, and increase product revenue streams.

In this way, CATIA V5 drives top-line revenue growth as well as bottom-line cost saving, thus improving overall business profitability and strengthening the company's market position. For a growing number of manufacturers, new technology provides an effective means for focusing on their core competencies that have sustained them for years but now must be leveraged more effectively. As a result, moving to V5 as the core system for many companies isn't so much a technical decision as it is a business strategy to ensure the continued survival of the enterprise.

Profile of a Total Solution Provider

The largest total solution provider is RAND Worldwide, with over 1,200 professionals operating in 120 offices in 27 countries. The company has helped over 45,000 customers improve their product development process, installed over 81,000 solid modeling systems, and helped clients bring over 40,000 new products to market. Founded in 1987, it is the world's largest technology-independent curriculum developer and provider of technical education to the global engineering community. To date, they have educated over 157,000 engineers in various aspects of CAD operation and process integration.

RAND has access to over 100 different automation technologies and services vendors including Dassault Systèmes PLM portfolio, IBM's Websphere business integration platform, IDe's portfolio and resource management tools, Hewlett Packard's OpenView service management solutions, and more.

Depending on particular client objectives, RAND can benchmark competing software, evaluate client needs, recommend changes to the existing system, formulate implementation plans, and if necessary serve as a general contractor in installing and integrating various vendor systems. This type of objective integration of systems is especially important, since no single vendor can supply all the software generally needed for CAD, CAM, CAE, PDM and related PLM operations. A total solutions provider has the capacity to provide these services to customers who are making process related changes to their business, companies that understand that they must change - not just automate - to be successful.

In building these integrated systems, RAND has extensive experiences in establishing IT infrastructure as well as software development capabilities that provide the "glue" for seamless linking these programs and sharing data throughout an organization. RAND also has developed successful internally-created software products including Q-Checker for CATIA, which is especially well-suited for use in quality programs such as Six-Sigma and TQC (Total Quality Control). Q-Checker has been mandated for all CAD models used by Daimler-Chrysler to solve a problem that was costing them $23 million a year. Over 600 other companies have implemented Q-Checker including EADS Airbus, Ferrari, Freightliner, Hyundai, Porsche, Mitsubishi, and Subaru.

Problems with Old CAD

• Limited functionality
• Incompatibility with new systems
• Slower performance
• Less process efficiency
• High operation and maintenance costs
• Locked into processes and approaches of the past

The Value of CATIA V5 as core system

• Lower costs for maintenance, errors, systems administration, etc.
• Time savings through process compression
• Leverage CAD data in serviceability, manufacturability
• Better collaboration throughout enterprise
• Launch winning products sooner
• Drive top-line revenue growth and bottom-line savings