CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
28 June 2004
Implementation Investments
Jordan Grand Prix and RAND: A Winning Formula for Speed On and Off the Track
Rand Worldwide, an IBM Premier Business Partner, announced a software and services deal with Jordan Grand Prix. With the Formula 1 race season already grinding away in top gear, Jordan Grand Prix has made the decision to make a major shift in the way it designs its championship race car. Jordan has decided to sweep aside its existing computer-aided design and manufacturing technologies. Replacing them are IBM Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions, including CATIA V5 and SMARTEAM applications developed by Dassault Systèmes and delivered by IBM business partner RAND Worldwide®. The whole solution is backed up by a 5-year technical sponsorship agreement with RAND Worldwide.
Under the partnership arrangement, Jordan will be using 50 seats of CATIA V5 with the collaborative process solution SMARTEAM. Jordan will also benefit from RAND's data quality tool Q-checker. As part of the same deal, Jordan has teamed-up with RAND Worldwide as a technology partner to help it steer the implementation program and provide training and ongoing support.
John McQulliam, Jordan's Head of Design, said, "I am looking forward to working with RAND. The design process is fundamental to the team's success and, as such, I am keen to give my team the best possible tools. RAND will be providing us with state-of-the-art design software and just as importantly they will be working with us as technical partners. This will ensure a smooth transition from our current software and allow us to quickly realize the impressive capabilities of these products."
Head of Aerodynamics, Nicolo Petrucci also welcomed the deal saying, "Design has always been the basis of our work and these products will make a difference in reaching our targets. As aerodynamicists, the collaboration with RAND over the coming years will allow us to explore with more freedom solutions that otherwise would remain merely abstract concepts. To develop our ideas we need compatible tools for the methods and procedures particular to our research. RAND will provide software, hardware and specialized technical education support to assist the Jordan design team - closing the loop of advanced calculation and wind tunnel experiment."
"There was a burgeoning groundswell of opinion that CATIA V5 was emerging as the leading CAD system in the automotive and motorsport industries and that it was the right thing for us to take it on board," said Jordan's Head of IT, Dr James Henderson.
"It had always been on our list of priorities, but due to the challenges of timescales, it was perhaps number 3 on our list and we needed to focus on other things. Then in March of this year our Chief Operating Officer Richard O'Driscoll decided the time was right to turn the spotlamp on implementing CATIA V5 as our number 1 priority."
The implementation has been segmented into a three-phase program.
1st-leading up to the end of August-rolling out the technology and ensuring that Jordan's engineers and designers are up to speed on CATIA, at least to a basic level
2nd-from August to the end of the year - training key designers and engineers on the specialist features of the software and using the powerful functions to advance the design of next season's race car
3rd-next year - integrate the entire IBM PLM solution set across all of team Jordan's product-related functions.
"The third phase is a big one for us. The introduction of SMARTEAM opens up an entirely new and radical way of working. Over time we'd like to use it to integrate every part of our business from the designers, down to the buyers, the supply chain, marketing and administration, and ensure best practice right across the organization," said Henderson
Each annual manifestation of the Jordan F1 car is given the classification EJ, after the race team's founder Eddie Jordan, and a model number. Jordan is already using CATIA V5 to design certain modifications to this year's EJ14 car. But once the new system is fully operational it will drive the entire production of next year's EJ15 car that will make its debut at the Australian Grand Prix at the start of the new season.
For more information on Jordan Grand Prix, please visit http://www.f1jordan.com/ , for RAND, http://www.rand.com/ and for IBM, visit http://www.ibm.com/solutions/plm
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