RED BULL SAUBER PETRONAS Formula 1 Takes the Checkered Flag with IBM PLM Solutions

    HINWIL, Switzerland--Oct. 1, 2001--RED BULL SAUBER PETRONAS, the Swiss Formula 1 race team, IBM and Dassault Systemes announced today that the RED BULL SAUBER PETRONAS team has seen significant monetary and time savings in the testing and development of this season's race car due to the extensive use of IBM Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions.
    Since the early 1980's SAUBER has been using CATIA Solutions, but most recently has developed a PLM environment by integrating the 3D software with SAP for enterprise resource planning (ERP) and for product data management (PDM). For digital mock-up RED BULL SAUBER PETRONAS is piloting ENOVIAVPM Version 1.3. CATIA is instrumental in all engineering and design work including mechanical design and kinematics. Using a single PLM environment for all aspects of the development cycle enables the team to streamline its entire engineering and manufacturing process, thus improving the quality of the high performance race car.
    CATIA is also involved in all manufacturing processes of the chassis, through the extensive use of CATIA's numerical controlling (NC) functionality for direct 5-axis milling in house. Since RED BULL SAUBER PETRONAS has the modules in-house, purchase can send IGES or STEP files directly to its suppliers for manufacturing parts.
    "We have no compatibility issues with our suppliers," says Peter M. Brak, Head of IT Department, RED BULL SAUBER PETRONAS. "When you have two weeks between races, we don't have the luxury of wasting time. Our PLM environment provides us with an efficient development model that enables us to stay focused on the design and not the process."
    RED BULL SAUBER PETRONAS's engineering environment includes a total of 65 seats of CATIA Version 4 for UNIX, on IBM RS/6000 workstations, which is integrated with SAP R/3 and some Version 5 for Windows NT on high-end PC's.
    "Every second counts in Formula 1 racing whether you are on the track or in the engineering department," explained Carlo Ranfagni, director of small and medium worldwide sales, IBM Product Lifecycle Management Solutions. "By integrating CAD and ERP more then just seconds will be saved, working will be made easier and the efforts previously required for time consuming tasks, like data management, will now become nonexistent."
    "CATIA is used by over 60 percent of the Formula 1 race teams this year as well as by teams in the Le Mans and CART circuits," said Etienne Droit, Executive Vice President Sales and Marketing, Dassault Systemes. "CATIA is providing these teams with real time competitive advantages and the proof is in the point standings."

    About RED BULL SAUBER PETRONAS

    Peter Sauber's top-of-the-line racing operation is the jewel in the crown of Hinwil, a small Swiss town near Zurich. Here, 300 people of 19 different nationalities work for the success of the RED BULL SAUBER PETRONAS Formula One team. Equipped to the finest technical detail, RED BULL SAUBER PETRONAS' highly developed F1 center is located only a few steps from where Peter Sauber started out in 1970 as an independent businessman. Always fascinated by the application of high technology to motor racing, Peter Sauber has been building high tech race cars for the Formula One World Championships since 1993. So far, this season, his young team, with drivers Nick Heidfeld (24) and Kimi Raikkonen (22), is running fifth in the fiercely competitive F1 World Championship of Constructors. More Information available at http://www.redbull-sauber.com

    About IBM

    IBM is the world's largest information technology company, with 80 years of leadership in helping businesses innovate. IBM Sales & Distribution, which supports more than a dozen key industries worldwide, works with companies of all sizes around the world to deploy the full range of IBM technologies. The fastest way to get more information about IBM is through the IBM home page at http://www.ibm.com

    About Dassault Systemes

    Dassault Systemes is the premier global software developer for the CAD/CAM/CAE/PLM market, providing companies with e-business solutions to implement their digital enterprise, thus creating and simulating the entire product life cycle from initial concept to product in service. CATIA, ENOVIA and DELMIA solutions support industry-specific business processes to help unleash creativity and innovation, reduce development cycle time, improve quality, competitiveness and shareholder value: CATIA supports the digital product definition and simulation, DELMIA provides solutions to define and simulate lean digital manufacturing processes and ENOVIA delivers enterprise solutions that manage a comprehensive, collaborative and distributed model of the digital product, processes and resources. The combined integration creates the Digital Product life cycle Pipeline, supporting reuse of corporate knowledge. SolidWorks and SmarTeam, as Dassault Systemes companies, offer respectively 3D design-centric and collaborative PDM software solutions based on Windows and the internet. Spatial, also part of Dassault Systemes family, is a market-leading provider of world-class 3D software components and services (for 3D modeling, visualization, and interoperability) to meet the requirements of 3D in Internet-based e-commerce and B2B applications.
    Information about Dassault Systemes is available at http://www.dsweb.com.
    CATIA(R) is registered in the US Patent and Trade Mark Office by Dassault Systemes. ENOVIA (TM) is owned by Dassault Systemes and used under license. All other company product or service names mentioned may be trademarks or service marks of others.