Dassault blames Toyota's problems on immature simulation software

During yesterday's quarterly conference call with financial analysts, Dassault Systemes ceo Bernard Charles was asked:

Q: Could you give a comment on what's happening at Toyota and Honda? Is it a risk for Dassault Systemes -- or is it maybe an opportunity, given the fact that maybe the subcontractors are not equipped by software from Dassault Systemes?

Mr Charles first did not want to talk on the situation:

A: I don't want to comment about what we're doing with them related to the specific problem for the cars, but what I can say is they are not design related.

But then he commented anyhow, placing the blame on the inadequacies of simulation:

A: ...Simulation has to be integrated in PLM... [You] take the risk to not being able to simulate what you think the product is, and you might be simulating the wrong usage conditions.

That is what tripped up Toyota. Mr Charles also blamed the lack of integration of all aspects of product design:

A: There is a lot of electronics, there is a lot of software, and up to now those disciplines have been non-integrated... We are the only company today to be able to integrate both systems, both the software with the physical product, the only company. It’s called CATIA system in version 6.

In therein lays the rub: on the one hand, Mr Charles says that only CATIA is able to perform the types of simulation needed by car and aerospace companies ("You don't want those vehicles to drop on the head of someone and so this is where we are going with CATIA"); OTOH, Toyota uses CATIA, and has a multi-billion-dollar recall problem. 

Source.

Comments

[Rick Damiani]

Kinda like the A380 wiring harness problems, eh?

[Mello]

it is easy to blamme Toyota and try to avoid the responsibility of a BAD tool provided by DS