CIMdata PLM Industry Summary Online Archive
15 December 2005
Product News
ICEM Sets out its Future Software Development 'Roadmap'
At an international press conference in London today, Lee Cureton, chief executive of global surface modeling, surface validation and design visualization software developer, ICEM Ltd., set out his company's software development 'roadmap' for the next few years. He was speaking at the launch of ICEM's new-generation surface design and modeling software suite, ICEM Shape Design, at which he was joined by Philippe Laufer, director of research & development, shape design and styling solutions, Dassault Systèmes, the leading developer of collaborative product development and manufacturing and product lifecycle management (PLM) software solutions.
Describing the driving forces behind ICEM's software development program, Cureton said, "ICEM's principal market is currently the global automotive industry. Perhaps more than in any other sector of the engineering and manufacturing industries today, automotive manufacturers are under pressure to shorten product development timescales and reduce costs at the same time as increasing the level of both the perceived and the actual quality of their products. Our customers have told us that we can help them achieve this by delivering comprehensive software tools-sets that support the different stages of the vehicle body and interior design development process, that integrate with their own engineering CAD/CAM and PLM software environments and that help to improve the overall vehicle design development and engineering workflow. Our software development and marketing agreement with Dassault Systèmes is a key part of ICEM's strategy for addressing these clearly-stated requirements of a key industry sector."
Dassault Systèmes' Philippe Laufer commented, "ICEM holds an important position in the automotive industry through the presence of its software in most of the world's automotive OEMs' and their suppliers' surface engineering departments. From our position as the global automotive industry's leading supplier of collaborative design engineering, manufacturing and product lifecycle management (PLM) software solutions, we saw that by leveraging the best assets from each partner, we will deliver a unique and innovative V5-based styling-to-manufacturing approach as an intrinsic part of the PLM business transformation."
"ICEM Shape Design addresses the vehicle body exterior and interiors design development process and is the first result of our relationship," he added. "The next step is to combine our expertise and industry knowledge to deliver a new V5 integrated product for use in the front-end concept styling process."
Integrated and stand-alone solutions.
Designed to address the specific needs of different aspects of the product design and development process, ICEM's software development program embraces both fully integrated and stand-alone solutions that cover concept design and styling, design development and surface engineering, production tooling design, reverse engineering and design visualization.
For concept design and styling, ICEM will develop a new product that will use some of the advanced technologies found in ICEM's existing styling software product, ICEM Style. Combined with key technologies developed by Dassault Systèmes, the new product will fully integrate with ICEM Shape Design and with other CAA V5-based software products from Dassault Systèmes. It will also operate in 'standalone' mode for use in conjunction with CAD/CAM systems from other vendors.
For the design development and surface engineering process, ICEM's new-generation surface modeling, surface validation and design visualization software suite, ICEM Shape Design, will deliver a full range of advanced, Class A surface design and engineering tools. This will satisfy companies looking for a solution that integrates seamlessly with their CATIA V5 or other CAA V5-based software solutions from Dassault Systèmes, or that operates as a stand-alone solution in conjunction with engineering CAD/CAM systems from other vendors.
In addition, the company will continue to develop its surface modeling, surface quality analysis and design visualization software suite, ICEM Surf. This will continue to answer the design development, Class A surface modeling and analysis and production tooling development needs of existing customers who have invested resources in creating ICEM Surf data and who have not yet implemented CATIA V5.
To support the growth in its customer base that ICEM is anticipating as a result of its aggressive focus on surface engineering within the overall product lifecycle management (PLM) environment, the company will also put additional emphasis on its consulting and customer services business. The company's consultants and software specialists will work increasingly with customers to help them improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their surface modeling and product development processes and to eliminate the boundaries that can adversely effect product development processes, enabling suppliers, associates and customers to fully collaborate in an extended enterprise.
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