Volvo Taps IT to Help Truck Units Collaborate on Design

Computerworld - Volvo Group is launching a set of collaborative product development applications in a bid to cut costs and more tightly connect its three separate truck units and their suppliers during the vehicle design process.

Volvo Trucks announced last month that it is standardizing truck development activities at its Volvo Truck Corp., Mack Trucks Inc. and Renault VI units. To make that happen, it's installing product life cycle management (PLM) applications developed by Paris-based Dassault Systemes SA and sold by IBM.

PLM technology lets companies share a single view of product and procurement data among different departments and external suppliers. Driving Volvo's need for that capability is its acquisition of the Mack and Renault truck operations 15 months ago in a deal that made it the second-largest truck maker, behind DaimlerChrysler AG.

The initial cost of the software rollout will be more than $10 million, according to Orjan Christensson, CIO for IT applications at Volvo Group in Goteborg, Sweden. He declined to disclose the company's full budget for the software, which will also be used by Volvo's bus operations in a separate installation. Volvo Car Corp. is now owned by Ford Motor Co. and isn't involved in the PLM project.

Christensson said the new applications should reduce the number of prototype vehicles Volvo's truck operations need to build, and help cut product costs and shorten design times. Volvo executives also hope the PLM software will aid the company's efforts to overtake DaimlerChrysler in the truck market, Christensson said.

But DaimlerChrysler has also bought Dassault's applications and said last month that it was already deploying the same PLM tools that Volvo is installing. The software will be used by its interior design and vehicle-packaging teams, according to the automaker. Officials at DaimlerChrysler wouldn't disclose more details last week.

Previously, automakers typically wrote their own product design management applications, said Joshua Greenbaum, an analyst at Enterprise Applications Consulting in Daly City, Calif. But those applications weren't "necessarily the most effective and collaborative" tools, he added.

Volvo currently uses homegrown software that it will mostly phase out as the PLM applications are installed. But the project poses challenges, Christensson said. For example, forcing smaller suppliers to use the PLM tools would put too much of a burden on those companies, he said.

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