Fujitsu Begins Development of Technical Information System for Kawasaki Heavy Industries

Tokyo, May 09, 2011

Fujitsu today announced that it has begun development, in collaboration with Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd., of a next-generation integration system for managing design component list data for aircrafts manufactured by the company's aerospace division.

By January 2013, Kawasaki Heavy Industries plans to integrate its design components list data, which is currently being managed through multiple systems, on a new system based on the PLEMIA M3 PDM (Product Data Management) solution. By doing so, Kawasaki Heavy Industries aims to raise operational efficiency and increase design quality and speed, thereby raising its competitive edge.

Background

Components management is vitally important in the aerospace industry, as roughly one million parts can go into one aircraft. Moreover, each part needs to be guaranteed for over 30 years, in accordance with the operating life of an aircraft. For each aircraft, Kawasaki Heavy Industries currently has a separate system for managing components list data. As a result, since designers need to learn the different features and operating methods of each system in order to register and revise component data, having multiple systems is time-consuming and inconvenient, and makes it difficult to share information.

Seeking to resolve this problem by streamlining its design component list data, and thereby reducing the workload and raising the convenience of its designers, Kawasaki Heavy Industries has started to work with Fujitsu to build a technical information integrated management system that can handle both of the aviation industry's two configuration information management methods: structure effectivity⁽¹⁾ and revision effectivity⁽²⁾.

Based on PLEMIA M3, which has been deployed in approximately 240 major manufacturers and other companies, and using Fujitsu PRIMEQUEST mission critical IA servers, Fujitsu and Kawasaki Heavy Industries are jointly developing a system for managing parts at the individual aircraft level, with each aircraft composed of roughly one million parts. They are developing approximately 150 additional features for the system in order to accommodate the unique management needs of the aviation industry, where maintenance needs can extend over 30 years. Existing data gradually will be shifted to the new system by January 2013. The new system is being built with advanced security features and high-speed data transmission features to enable parts information to be smoothly and securely exchanged with component manufacturers and partners that are jointly involved in the design work.

The new system will dramatically improve Kawasaki Heavy Industries' design component list data management operations and significantly raise the productivity of its designers. Moreover, system operations and maintenance costs will be significantly reduced.

In recent years Kawasaki Heavy Industries has been expanding its sphere of business, including developing its own proprietary models. With the new technical information integrated management system, the company seeks to raise its competitiveness by further improving its design efficiency and enhancing the security of its technical information.

Fujitsu will continue to leverage the latest information and communications technologies to help Kawasaki Heavy Industries expand its business.

About PLEMIA M3

In April 2009 Fujitsu introduced PLEMIA M3 as the Fujitsu Group's PDM solution. PLEMIA M3 enables the integrated management of a variety of data, including CAD data, design processes, documents, know-how, data on problems and customer complaints, and environmental information. In 2010, Fujitsu added features to facilitate the conceptual design phase of product development, thereby helping to reduce product costs and improve quality starting from the conceptual design phase. Currently, over 240 customers have deployed PLEMIA M3.

The development and deployment work involved in deploying PLEMIA M3 at Kawasaki Heavy Industries was handled by Fujitsu Nagano System Engineering Limited.

The Fujitsu Group plans to continue to provide PLM solutions for managing the entire product lifecycle to enable customers in Japan to maintain their global competitiveness and expand their earnings.