IBM and Dassault Systemes launch CATIA Version 5 Release 6
Expanded process coverage with 78 products in the world's leading product development solution

March 20 – IBM and Dassault Systemes announced the launch of Version 5 Release 6 (V5R6) of CATIA, the world's leading business process automation solution for product creation and product lifecycle management (PLM). Introduced only four months after V5R5, CATIA V5R6 is available worldwide on 23 March 2001 on both the Windows and UNIX platforms. CATIA V5R6 incorporates major improvements to existing products, and introduces 17 new products, bringing to 78 the total number of CATIA V5 products.

With its unique specification and knowledge-driven approach, CATIA V5R6 enables easy integration of multiple engineering disciplines through its expanded process coverage. In V5R6, users have integrated capabilities to address all product development processes, to improve product quality, reduce development time and costs, and increase competitiveness.

CATIA V5R6 provides companies of all sizes with a full range of product lifecycle management solutions to facilitate innovation and continuously increase design productivity across the collaborative digital enterprise. V5R6 delivers unique functionality in such domains as product synthesis and analysis, including assessing man-machine interaction in the design process, validating a design for manufacture, and defining and validating a manufacturing process.

CATIA's new human modeling capabilities (integrating Safework technology) enable users to create a digital manikin for such ergonomic analysis as simulating the driver of a vehicle, evaluating his field of vision, predicting his comfort and checking accessibility to various controls. This next generation DMU technology promotes innovation in design and facilitates assessment of man-machine interaction for maximizing comfort and productivity, and for creating optimal conditions for manufacture and maintenance.

With CATIA V5R6, IBM and Dassault Systemes deliver the new Component Application Architecture (CAA), an open architecture which, when combined with extensive Application Programming Interface (API) libraries, allows users to integrate their own know-how into specialized CATIA applications. This robust and flexible tool set enables users and technology partners to expand the CATIA application portfolio by developing new extensions to existing applications and new applications within the CATIA V5 framework In CAA V5R6, companies benefit from an unprecedented openness that they can leverage across their PLM systems to their competitive advantage.

On 20 February 2001, IBM and Dassault Systemes introduced CATIA Version 4 Release 2.4 to address the needs of V4 customers. This new version contains significant improvements that preserve the investment of V4 customers, and that enable them to take advantage of the added value CATIA V5 can deliver to their business processes.

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