AUTOMOTIVE

Land Rover and ZJ Transportation, with assistance from IBM Business Consulting Services, are utilizing new Grid computing-based solutions built on IBM's engineering and design collaboration offering that are designed to increase competitive advantage, speed time-to-market and reduce operating costs. Enabling the virtualization of distributed computing and data resources, Grid computing technologies create a logical system view, granting users and applications seamless access to expanded IT resources and capabilities. Organizations deploying Grid-enabled technology can optimize computing and data resources, to accelerate computation, improve collaboration and deliver operational efficiency. IBM's grid project at Land Rover is built on a core component of the IBM Automotive Engineering Innovation Framework (AEIF), an initiative targeted at the automotive industry to streamline the engineering development process. This initiative provides a simplified way to integrate advanced technologies (e.g., Grid), middleware and relevant applications to optimize complex analysis and design environments. The IBM Grid Clash Analysis offering is one example of how AEIF and Grid computing are making a difference in the automotive industry. IBM's Grid computing Product Lifecycle Management offerings for the automotive industry help design engineers use Grid technology for more rapid evaluation of design alternatives during sub-assembly clash analysis. Developed by IBM and based on Platform Computing technology, as well as CATIA and ENOVIA, IBM PLM solutions developed by Dassault Systemes, the IBM Grid Clash offering provides a truly collaborative environment. Fostering creativity, sharing and communication of three-dimensional products and process-centric definitions, the complete solution captures and reuses know-how that drives the implementation of corporate design best practices, reducing overall operating costs and increasing individual productivity. "Leading customers in the industries are deploying Grid initiatives to address their most mission critical business challenges," said Albert Bunshaft, VP, Sales and Business Development Grid and Virtualization. "Consistently searching for ways to optimize their business processes, increase the productivity of their end-users and decrease the amount of time lost in waiting on analysis, our most discerning customers are looking to Grid technologies to help them improve the utilization and responsiveness or their IT systems to deliver real business value." Engineering and Design Land Rover Smoothes Out Rough Terrain with IBM Grid Computing Land Rover, the producer of the 2005 Motor Trend Sport Utility vehicle of the Year, the Land Rover LR3/discovery, is utilizing IBM Grid-enabled PLM solutions to generate timely and accurate information on the clash status of its designs during pre-production. Leveraging emerging technologies to realize efficiencies and cost reductions in the vehicle manufacturing process, Land Rover has deployed Grid workstations with CATIA V5 computer aided design software. Working with IBM Business Consulting Services, Land Rover has reengineered its clash management process, bringing a significant improvement in the time taken for clash analyses and resolution, delivering a rapid increase in time-to-market. IBM Grid-enabled technologies improve the process by generating timely and accurate results, which are monitored and managed using tools developed on IBM WebSphere Application Server. "IBM has helped us build a new clash management solution that takes time, cost and complexity out of the product development process," said Dave Walker, Manager, Vehicle Packaging, Land Rover. Collaboration ZJ Transportation Travels Through the Zhejiang Province With IBM Zhejiang Transportation Bureau, the transportation government and administration department of the Zhejiang province, in collaboration with IBM Business Consulting Services, is now aligned with more than 100 transportation companies across the Zhejiang province through a deployment of Grid-enabled technologies. By using federated database technology to integrate information, the network of transportation companies is now able to share bus routing information, ticket pricing and on-line scheduling. By leveraging the existing ticket selling infrastructure and implementing Web Services standards as integration interface, Zhejiang Transportation has enabled its collaborators to have access to information similar to a third-party ticketing vendor. "The new consolidated ticket selling system will serve 3 million passengers each day in Zhejiang Province and have the capability to serve 10 millions in the coming future. The new system has enabled improved customer satisfaction and higher quality of ticketing service. The system is easy to integrate with other ticketing selling systems of circumjacent provinces to provide more efficient transportation service for customers." Wang Xiao Ping, Manager of Transportation Department, Zhejiang Transportation Bureau.