Press Release

Mechanical Dynamics Announces Contract with Volvo

10/25/96

Volvo Aims to Reduce Time to Market with Help of Specialized Vehicle
Simulation Software from Mechanical Dynamics

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Oct. 23 -- Volvo Car Corporation is
relying on specialized vehicle simulation software from Mechanical
Dynamics, Inc. to help integrate the "virtual
prototyping" concept into its vehicle design processes.

The Swedish automaker's aim is to eliminate as much as possible of the
physical prototype testing that vehicle development has historically
required. To this end, the company is performing an increasing share
of its design and testing functions on computers with Mechanical
Dynamics' ADAMS/Car software.

Volvo's ultimate goal in applying this technology is to gain a
critical competitive advantage by reducing the time and cost of new
vehicle development.

Optimizing Vehicle Designs

ADAMS/Car has been developed by Mechanical Dynamics with the funding
and technical support of a consortium of worldwide automobile
manufacturers, of which Volvo is a founding member. Volvo has also
recently contracted with Mechanical Dynamics for onsite consulting
services to broaden the scope of ADAMS/Car's usage within the company.

For the past two years, Volvo's simulation efforts have focused on the
area of suspension design, where the company's engineers have studied
variations in toe angle, road loads, wheel rates, and other parameters
to establish the best configurations for ride and handling.
Simulation at Volvo has also been used to determine the orientation of
joints for steering mechanisms, to study clearances in the
configuration of wheel housings, and to test the designs of engine
components.

Johnny Engstrom, a systems analyst at Volvo, says that computer
simulation is not only faster and more economical than physical
testing, it also enables engineers to run through many useful
"what-if" scenarios that would be impractical to perform with hardware
prototypes. By quickly studying multiple design alternatives in this
way, engineering teams can optimize the performance of their designs
in the earliest stages of vehicle development.

Engstrom views simulation as a key element in Volvo's efforts to
reduce time to market. He says the role of virtual prototyping is
being expanded in a new car now under development at the company. Not
only will the vehicle's suspension systems, body hardware, tires,
drivetrain, and steering mechanisms be modeled and individually tested
in ADAMS/Car, these subsystem designs will also be combined in a
complete assembly for full-vehicle simulations.

Volvo's designers and engineers will be able to exercise these
subsystem and full-vehicle models under various road conditions,
performing every maneuver normally run on a test track. They can
accurately predict handling characteristics, ride quality, vehicle
safety, and performance parameters -- all in the computer, and all
before building a single hardware prototype.

Focus on Core Competencies

Magnus Carlander, the director of information technology and product
documentation in Volvo's Product Development Unit, says that the
experience gained by Volvo engineers in simulating vehicle
subassemblies is a necessary step toward achieving the company's
broader vision for full-vehicle simulation.  "The challenge for us
now," he says, "is to connect our separate islands of automation and
integrate simulation more fully into the vehicle development
process. This will enable us to implement virtual prototyping on a
grand scale."

Carlander adds, "The movement from point solutions to integrated
systems holds the greatest potential for shortening our vehicle
development lead times."

According to Carlander, Volvo previously used internally-developed,
mainframe-based simulation software, but decided to replace it with
Mechanical Dynamics' commercial workstation-based ADAMS/Car
package. "Making cars is what we do best," says Carlander. "Using
ADAMS/Car lets us concentrate on automotive design, while software
developers use their own expertise in giving our engineers the best
tools available."

An Industry-specific Solution

The development of ADAMS/Car demonstrates the cooperation possible
between a leading engineering software supplier and its largest
customers -- even when those customers are the fiercely competitive
rivals of the worldwide automotive market.

Recognizing that to develop a complete vehicle simulation environment
-- specialized, yet broadly applicable within the automotive industry
-- would be impractical for just one software vendor and one user
organization to tackle alone, a consortium of major automakers
including Volvo, Renault, Ford, BMW, and Audi teamed up with
Mechanical Dynamics to sponsor the joint development of this tool.

Each member of the consortium -- recently expanded to include Nissan
and Rover Group -- has provided technical input and financial support
to the ADAMS/Car development. The software is now being deployed
throughout the consortium member companies' engineering organizations,
and is being marketed worldwide by Mechanical Dynamics.

Volvo's Carlander explains that differences in the way automakers
integrate the software into their own vehicle development processes
will determine the level of success each company achieves in reducing
time to market. "Ultimately, the deciding competitive factor will be
how we use the tool, in combination with Volvo-specific add-ons," he
says.

The ADAMS/Car software features a user interface customized for
automotive engineers. Users can easily build computer models of their
vehicle designs, animate vehicle motion on their screens, display
graphs of important parameters, and produce standardized test reports
for each simulation. Menu selections highlight functions and
capabilities familiar to automotive engineers, so users can get up and
running on the software with minimal training.

Benefits of Customization

ADAMS/Car represents the latest step in Mechanical Dynamics' ongoing
effort to produce industry-specific versions of its ADAMS
general-purpose mechanical system simulation software. The company
also recently introduced ADAMS/Rail, a specialized virtual prototyping
environment for railcar engineering.  ADAMS/Rail was developed in
partnership with N.V.  Nederlandse Spoorwegen (Dutch Rail), with the
cooperation of the Delft (Netherlands) University of
Technology. Embedded in the software are the rail equipment design
expertise and analytical methods of N.S. Materieel Engineering, Dutch
Rail's engineering arm.

"By customizing ADAMS for particular environments," says Mechanical
Dynamics' president and CEO Michael Korybalski, "we make the full
power of mechanical system simulation easily accessible to users who
may not have extensive experience with the technology."

Software customization, says Korybalski, is one of his company's chief
added values. "What we really want is to be a partner to our customers
-- not merely a vendor providing commodity products at commodity
prices. We want to be a partner who understands our customers'
industries, their internal processes, and their unique business
problems. Then, as with ADAMS/Car, we can deliver tools and services
uniquely fitted to these demands."

About Mechanical Dynamics

ADAMS from Mechanical Dynamics, Inc. is acknowledged to be the world's
most widely-used mechanical system simulation tool. In the automotive
industry, ADAMS has become a de facto standard for motion
simulation. It is used by every major automobile manufacturer in North
America, Europe, and Asia, as well as many leading automotive
suppliers and tire manufacturers.

Outside of the automotive industry, ADAMS users include hundreds of
major manufacturers in the aircraft, aerospace, off-highway equipment,
rail, shipbuilding, defense, industrial machinery, mechatronics, and
sports equipment industries, among others. The software runs on all
leading engineering workstation platforms and PCs.

Ann Arbor, Michigan-based Mechanical Dynamics pioneered the field of
mechanical system simulation, and has remained focused on this
technology since its founding in 1977. The company has received
numerous awards and honors acknowledging its industry
leadership. These include the U.S. President's "E" Award for
Excellence in Exporting; recognition of the company's software as one
of the "Best Products of 1995" by Design News magazine, as well as one
of the "Top Ten Software Products of 1994" by IEEE Computer Graphics
and Applications; and designation as a Hewlett-Packard Premier
Solutions Partner, a Silicon Graphics Premier ISV (Independent
Software Vendor), and a Sun Catalyst Strategic Developer.