Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Having Been Thoroughly Spanked for its DumboJet Mistakes, Airbus Regularly Submits to its New Dassault Systèmes Overlords

When Airbus went public in 2006 and confessed to its inability to deliver the A380 DumboJet on time, the repercussions were many. Executive heads rolled, the unions were pressured to put product first, and several airlines cut back their orders. The two big winners were Boeing and Dassault Systèmes.

Since then Airbus has placed several large orders for CATIA and related software tools. Today Dassault announces that Airbus has standardized on its Abaqus Finite Element Analysis (FEA) software, from Dassault's SIMULIA division.

To quote the press release, "This decision comes as a result of an extensive benchmark of several FEA codes. The Abaqus FEA software has already been successfully applied on the A380 aircraft program for structural virtual testing, and represents a first step in what is to develop into a longer-term collaborative relationship." That last phrase is marketing-speak for "we have both hands deeper into their pockets than you can possibly imagine."

The A380 design team knew they were in trouble when the wiring inside the aircraft started to look like a set from the movie "Aliens".

Posted by Randall at 11:15:46 | Permanent Link | Comments (5) |
Comments
1 - Sorry, but your posting really misses a number of important points. I sure you posted this in good faith, but if you were looking for a sensationalist story then you are in the wrong place.

First, note that SIMULIA have nothing to do with wire harness design, nor interoperability issues to which your link sarcastically points ("Dumbojet" - please...)

Next, if you had seen the presentation by Airbus at the recent Abaqus User's Conference in Paris then you would understand just how much the Abaqus FEA software contributed to the effective design and certification of the A380 wing. This work was necessitated by the lack of capabilities of legacy linear tools that had been previously used.

Now I know there are not always many sensational headlines to report upon in our admittedly conservative industry, but this post really goes a bit far out of the reality domain. (Comment this)

Written by: CAE at 2007/05/24 - 14:42:44
2 - Dear Annonymous "CAE", You completely missed the point of the item. Completely. Let me boil it down.
1. Airbus had a major screw-up.
2. It wants to avoid such major screw-ups in the future.
3. To help avoid major screw-ups, it is inventing in state-of-the art CAx software.
4. Dassault is making a lot of money off Airbus as a result. (And good for Dassault, I might add.) (Comment this)

Written by: Randall at 2007/05/24 - 16:21:00
3 - I would agree, most bloggers have no real CAD experience but claim they are experts. They do product reviews after using the software at some fancy press event while being catered to. If you really wanted to have credibility, why dont you buy the software just like we do and actually design something. Instead of basing your review on creating a box with a cut and shelling it.
Spend why dont you spend some time at airbus then comment on how good or bad things are.


 (Comment this)

Written by: MIKE at 2007/05/29 - 12:11:59
4 - I asked Dassault's pr firm if Airbus had any choice but to buy from Dassault. I did not receive a reply.
 (Comment this)

Written by: ralphg at 2007/06/12 - 23:36:55
5 - Well, there was an extensive benchmark where Abaqus was the winner... I'm sure that had something to do with the decision? (Comment this)

Written by: Anonymous at 2007/06/14 - 20:50:56
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