SONY Selects CATIA V5 Solutions From IBM and Dassault Systemes for TV Design Innovation; CATIA V5's Module Design Method Reduces Development Time and Cuts Cost.

Business Editors

SURESNES, France & TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 23, 2001

Sony Corporation- Home Network Company- Home Visual Company-Tokyo, Japan- one of the world's leading manufactures of consumer electronics, has selected CATIA Version 5 (V5) solutions from IBM and Dassault Systemes (Nasdaq: DASTY; Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA) for the design of its popular flat-screen WEGA television monitors.

Utilizing all of CATIA's newest capabilities such as modelling, analysis, and evaluation using digital mock-up (DMU), Sony engineers, speaking at the European CATIA Forum 2001, said they were able to apply their latest technical advances to the product line more quickly as result.

"CATIA V5 gave us very efficient means for design method compared with conventional design using 2D," said Mr. Takeo Mitsui, assistant manager, Home Visual Company - Home Network Company - Sony. "For instance, digital mock up enabled us to evaluate the design earlier than with the former prototype based process and to give feedback promptly to the design team. In this way, accuracy of evaluation significantly improved. Also, the module design method enabled a very quick and efficient evaluation of alternate designs to improve product quality. Unless entire design is changed, this method can be easily used for product model change." Mr. Mitsui also stated, "This case is only one illustration of the advantages for using CATIA data. 3D conceals many other possibilities. We are planning to utilize 3D data more broadly as we are aiming to further improve design efficiency."

SONY Corporation - Home Network Company - Home Visual Company designs and develops color television sets, projection TV sets, and other related video display products. Sony selected CATIA V5 to design its stylish new WEGA 21-inch European model. CATIA V5 is used for Sony's design, analysis, DMU, production of rapid prototyping, and package design to reduce cycle time and improve quality while reducing production costs.

Sony used CATIA V5 for full modelling, from the power button to the operation panel flap, including draft angles and fillets. In addition, reused parts such as outer shapes of the CRT and base plates were also precisely modelled in order to study and evaluate the interferences or assembly feasibility.

Sony migrated from a two-dimensional (2D) Computer Aided Design system to a 3D solution to meet the needs for speeding innovations to market, as product life cycle becomes compressed by marketplace forces. Using CATIA V5, Sony integrated both engineering and manufacturing processes, adopting a modular design methodology. With this method, SONY achieved high effectiveness and an extensive increase in speed. In addition to these results, the entire design flow was dramatically accelerated as concurrent design activities in adjacent departments and even the die mold maker took items off the critical path. For example, SONY was able to reduce package design time by between 50 and 70 percent using CATIA V5.

SONY engineers now plan to exchange the 3D data and information from the design phase between the manufacturing, marketing, and sales divisions in true Product Lifecycle Management fashion.

"We are delighted that Sony, a world-leading electronics and electrical industry company, has selected CATIA V5 to reduce development time and cost while improving overall design quality," said Etienne Droit, executive vice president sales and marketing of Dassault System. "CATIA V5 offers ease of use for the engineers who start with 3D design for the first time, while offering the advanced functions, such as analysis and DMU, that fully support Sony's concept for the module design. Synergies between SONY's advanced vision and Dassault Systemes' technology will bring tremendous improvement in productivity."

Ed Petrozelli, general manager, IBM Product Lifecycle Management, said, "Much of the world visualizes their progress through a Sony television set, so IBM is quite honoured that Sony has chosen to visualize its progress and innovations through CATIA V5 solutions. People who value design appreciate V5's technical advantages through capabilities such as digital mock up."

Sony Corporation is a leading manufacturer of audio, video, game, communications and information technology products for the consumer and professional markets. With its music, pictures, computer entertainment and on-line businesses, Sony is uniquely positioned to be a leading personal broadband entertainment company in the world. Sony recorded consolidated annual sales of nearly US$ 60 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2001. URL: www.sony.co.jp

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

Dassault Systemes (Nasdaq: DASTY; Euronext Paris: #13065, DSY.PA) 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.