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vistagy

Now that Siemens PLM has acquired Vistagy, will Dassault Systemes play nice?

May 10, 2012 By Evan Yares 6 Comments

You may know that Siemens PLM recently acquired Vistagy, whose Fibersim software has been used to design 80% of the composites currently flying in today’s aircraft.

Vistagy has been a long-term third-party partner not just to Siemens PLM, but also to Dassault Systemes. Though DS has its own composite design solution, many of its most important customers use Fibersim. To say Vistagy has been an important partner for DS would be an understatement.

Siemens PLM Vistagy Fibersim

My interest in Vistagy is as a microcosm of the relationship between Siemens PLM and Dassault Systemes. Let’s face it: These two companies are serious competitors. Has Siemens acquisition of Vistagy upset a tenuous détente (if it can even be called that) between these two giants of PLM?

This week at Siemens PLM Connection, I got a chance to speak with Steve Luby, the current Sr. VP of Siemens’ Specialized Engineering Software business segment, and former CEO of Vistagy. He told me that he’d always been careful in maintaining Vistagy’s relationship with DS. Since Vistagy had been a long-term partner to both DS and Siemens PLM, he got used to treading carefully. Since the Siemens acquisition, Luby explained, DS has not done anything precipitous (such as tossing Vistagy/Siemens out of their partner program.)

But that’s not surprising. Doing that would be the equivalent of mutually assured destruction. It’d be tough to explain to the biggest aerospace firms in the world that, oops, they can’t use Vistagy’s products anymore.

My guess, though, is that DS is focusing big energy on improving their composite solution (which I understand is mighty competent already), with the eye to displacing as many seats of Fibersim as they can. Yet, even in the best of all worlds, that’s going to be hard to do. I can’t imagine Boeing, for example, dropping Fibersim from the toolset used on the 787 Dreamliner—a plane that’s 50% composites by weight.

I don’t anticipate that DS is going to open their doors, and let Siemens/Vistagy have completely unfettered access to their APIs (and customers!) The current Vistagy products, including applications for composites, airframe fasteners, and automotive/aerospace seating, are probably grandfathered in. But future Specialized Engineering (i.e., Vistagy) products?

It’s a big wild-card. The new Codex of PLM Openness that both DS and Siemens recently signed would suggest that the companies are going to play nicer together than they have in the past. Yet, my reading of the Codex is that it gives an awful lot of wiggle room.

The Siemens Vistagy acquisition presents a nice public context for DS to show that they’re committed to openness. To playing (competing) nice. If my reading between the lines is right, the situation is “so far, so good.” If you’re a Vistagy customer, and you hear anything different (good or bad), I’d sure like to hear about it.

Filed Under: Catia, Dassault Systemes, Evan Yares, Featured, Siemens PLM, Siemens PLM & Events Tagged With: Dassault Systems, fibersim, Siemens PLM, vistagy

BAE Systems Composite Structures Selects VISTAGY’s FiberSIM to design and manufacture aircraft parts

March 16, 2011 By Laura Carrabine Leave a Comment

VISTAGY, Inc. announced that BAE Systems Composite Structures Inc. purchased FiberSIM® software to design and manufacture parts for commercial aircraft programs, including an auxiliary power unit plenum. BAE Systems Composite Structures has worked with VISTAGY for over a decade and has used FiberSIM on programs for Rolls Royce, Bell Helicopter, and Raytheon.

BAE Systems Composite Structures uses FiberSIM to compress product development cycle times and reduce costs by eliminating the laborious processes for manually developing plies, creating templates, and digitizing flat patterns. Further, FiberSIM-driven, state-of-the-art manufacturing processes enable BAE Systems Composite Structures to reduce layup time and improve repeatability.

Vistagy Inc.

www.vistagy.com

Filed Under: 3D CAD Package Tips, CAD Blogs, CAD Industry News Tagged With: BAE Systems Composite Structures, Bell Helicopter, fibersim, Ratheon, Rolls Royce, vistagy

VISTAGY highlights industry-specific approach to composites engineering solutions

March 8, 2011 By Laura Carrabine Leave a Comment

VISTAGY has achieved growth in its target industries-automotive, aerospace, wind energy, and marine-because its FiberSIM composites engineering software supports the design-to-manufacturing process for highly engineered products.

There are many challenges in adopting structural composites for the high volume automotive market, including the need to provide engineers with rapid and accurate structural and crash performance analysis; new design methods suitable for high rate composite manufacturing; tools for selecting and simulating new materials and processes, and cost and weight feedback early in the design process.

FiberSIM answers these challenges with a variety of capabilities, including multi-layer material simulation– a factor in automotive composites that provides insight into the drape-ability of non-crimp fabrics (NCF) and other new materials, as well as the corresponding manufacturing processes such as forming.

The company announced several new and enhanced technology partnerships with industry leaders including Siemens PLM Software, ANSYS, and BETA CAE Systems. It also continues to focus on its research partnerships with prestigious institutions, such as the DLR, the German aerospace center; the University of Dresden; the National Institute of Aeronautical Research, and the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

VISTAGY

www.vistagy.com

Filed Under: 3D CAD Package Tips, CAD Industry News, Company News, Siemens PLM Tagged With: ANSYS, Siemens PLM, vistagy

GKN Aerospace selects VISTAGY’s FiberSIM and SyncroFIT software to design and manufacture winglet for Bombardier CSeries

June 2, 2010 By Laura Carrabine Leave a Comment

VISTAGY, Inc. announced that GKN Aerospace (London Stock Exchange:GKN), a leading Tier One supplier to the global aviation industry, purchased SyncroFIT® software for developing airframe assemblies, and VISTAGY professional services. GKN Aerospace will use SyncroFIT with FiberSIM® composites engineering software, both components of the VISTAGY AeroSuite™, to manage the evolving product development process and deliver an optimized winglet for Bombardier’s CSeries aircraft program. GKN Aerospace will also seek to ensure the maximum return on its technology investment by making extensive use of VISTAGY professional services, including process consulting, best practices development, and customized training.

GKN Aerospace has used FiberSIM for more than eight years to design a variety of highly complex composite parts, including the winglets on the Boeing 767, the leading edge for the Airbus A380 wings and the wing spars for the Airbus A400M. The adoption of SyncroFIT for the CSeries winglet extends the ongoing partnership between the companies.

Based on processes developed with VISTAGY on the Boeing 767 winglet, GKN Aerospace used FiberSIM to migrate from a ply-based to a structure-based design approach that helps the company react quickly to the inevitable design changes that occur during structural optimization of composite parts. Engineers will now use SyncroFIT to define fasteners early-on in order to provide procurement with precise and up-to-date bills of materials (BOMs), while compressing the fastener management process. GKN Aerospace will also use SyncroFIT to manage the interactions of composite details within assemblies so that its engineers can validate that fastener design rules have been met and that the ripple effect of changes during skin thickness updates are propagated throughout the assembly.

“Defining holes and fasteners is a critical issue for developing composite aircraft because the variation in skin thickness drives the need for a wide array of fasteners and adds complexity to the design,” said Justin Elliott, GKN Aerospace’s chief engineer on the CSeries aircraft winglet program. “SyncroFIT unravels this complexity by enabling us to easily author and capture complete digital representations of airframe assemblies and share critical design and manufacturing detail more efficiently. VISTAGY’s software and services will enable us to take an integrated approach to design and airframe assembly that will help us meet our goals.”

Vistagy

www.vistagy.com

GKN Aerospace

www.gknaerospace.com

Filed Under: CAD Industry News Tagged With: Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, fasteners, fibersim, GKN Aerospace, SyncroFIT, vistagy

Chinese company invests in composite software for wind blade development

April 6, 2010 By Laura Carrabine Leave a Comment

The company plans to use FiberSIM® composites software to help streamline its design-to-manufacturing process to keep pace with rapidly growing wind power market demand.
Given this lofty goal, the Sinomatech design team was faced with multiple challenges, including increasing the speed of blade design and production and improving the quality and repeatability of manufactured blades.

The design department selected FiberSIM because it meets a number of important criteria, including enabling:
•    Faster design cycles, enabling more trade off  studies for improved blade configuration and reduced weight
•    More accurate and detailed composite part and assembly definition
•    Support for rapid iterations between design and analysis for earlier and better blade optimization
•    Enhanced composites producibility simulation for early detection of manufacturing issues and rapid feedback to design
•    Seamless linking from design to production with support for automated cutting, laser positioning, and electronic documentation.

Vistagy
www.vistagy.com

Filed Under: CAD Industry News, Company News, Design World Tagged With: fibersim, vistagy

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