Microsoft SQL Server

Customer Solution Case Study

Automotive Firm Deploys Product

Lifecycle System, Speeds Development
by 30 Percent

Overview
Country or Region: South Africa
Industry: Professional services
Mechanical engineering
Customer Profile
Based in Cape Town, Africa, Optimal
Energy is a privately owned
company that is creating Africas
first electric car, Joule. Founded in
2005, the company employs 100
people in two locations.
Business Situation
Optimal Energy wanted to
consolidate eight disparate data
management systems into one
integrated product lifecycle
management (PLM) solution that
included document management
and development tools.
Solution
The company deployed a solution
from Dassault Systmes that runs
on the Microsoft platform and works
with Microsoft Office applications. It
includes tools for 3-D design,
visualization, and simulation.
Benefits
Speeds development by 30
percent
Accelerates data access and cuts

With our ENOVIA PLM solution, which runs on the highly

reliable and scalable Microsoft platform including SQL
Server 2008, people can work at least 30 percent faster and
with much greater accuracy.
Anton Greeff, Chief Mechanical Engineer, Optimal Energy

African automotive company Optimal Energy wanted to

replace its eight data management systems with an
integrated product lifecycle management (PLM) solution.
Employees struggled to access and share data, and
collaboration was difficult, especially between people
who worked at different locations. To address its
challenges, Optimal Energy deployed a PLM solution
from Dassault Systmes. It runs on the Microsoft
platform and provides integrated collaboration tools for
data management and three-dimensional development
and simulation including ENOVIA V6, ENOVIA 3DLive,
and CATIA V5. The solution also supports a central,
global database that runs on Microsoft SQL Server 2008
and seamless interoperability with Microsoft Office
applications. As a result, the company has accelerated
development by 30 percent, improved accuracy, cut
expenses, and streamlined data access and system

Situation
Founded in 2005, Optimal Energy is a
privately owned company based in
Cape Town, South Africa, that designs
and builds electric cars. Its goal is to
transform public transportation so
that it uses fewer natural resources
and less energy. The companys first
product, Joule, will be Africas first
electric car. It will be available for
purchase in Africa and Europe in
2014.
The companys 100 employees work
at two locations. One site serves as
the design facility, and the other
supports production. Because the
company has grown rapidly,
employees implemented IT to meet
needs as they arose. By 2009, the
company had eight distinct data
management systems to facilitate
product development. Employees
used these systems for computeraided design (CAD), computer-aided
engineering (CAE), and computeraided manufacturing (CAM)and also
to manage product requirements and
materials. Although many of the
systems used Microsoft SQL Server
data management software,
employees lacked a central data
store. Instead, project files resided on
individual workstations and numerous
server computers at the two
locations. These decentralized
solutions made it difficult to share
data, reduced accuracy, impeded
project management, and hindered
system administration.
For example, because the company
used different systems and file

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formats, employees spent significant

time either converting files or recreating them. This included
transferring information between CAD
programs and applications such as
Microsoft Office Excel 2007
spreadsheet software, Microsoft Office
Word 2007, and Microsoft Office
PowerPoint 2007 presentation
graphics program. In addition,
managers could not quickly access
detailed, real-time project information
and, instead, had to rely on manual
processes to collect data.
Consequently, project information was
sometimes out of date.
Without a central database,
employees spent hours each week
finding the newest version of specific
documents. To help prevent people
from either duplicating work or using
an older file version, managers strictly
partitioned design tasks. Ultimately,
however, building a car requires
collaborationespecially with thirdparty vendors who produce parts.
Each day, engineers, production
personnel, and third-party vendors in
Europe had to coordinate the
exchange of information. Depending
on the size and number of the files
that needed to be sent, people used
email or File Transfer Protocol (FTP)a
process that could take several hours.
In addition, employees and third-party
vendors sometimes transported files
on a portable hard drive because FTP
can pose a security risk and because
transferring some data sets, which
can be 40 gigabytes in size, takes too
long.

A manager who may not

know how to use a CAD
program like CATIA can
open the 3-D representation
of a product in a Microsoft
Office application and
instantly see, by the color
coding, which parts are
under or over budget.
Anton Greeff, Chief Mechanical Engineer,
Optimal Energy

As Joules development progressed

and Optimal Energy continued to
grow, delays created by manually
sharing files increased. For example,
if production personnel found an issue
with a part, they often modified the
parts physical and virtual design and
then notified engineering. Data was
always out of sync, says Anton
Greeff, Chief Mechanical Engineer at
Optimal Energy. We knew that at any
given time, the CAD data we had was
at least three or four days out of date
compared to the data at the
production facility. We had to be very
rigorous in following up with phone
calls and email messages to ensure
that these issues didnt cause big
production delays.
Because employees at different
locations could not work on the same
file simultaneously, they sometimes
agreed on product changes over the
phoneor through email or instant
messaging (IM)even though they
were not viewing the same diagrams.
As a result, misunderstandings
occurred that sometimes led to
production errors.
To address these challenges, Optimal
Energy decided to implement an
integrated product lifecycle
management (PLM) solution that
provided centralized tools for
document management and
development including CAD, CAE, and
CAM. Optimal Energy sought a
solution that was easy to deploy,
learn, and scale.

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Solution
In March 2010, Optimal Energy
decided to implement the ENOVIA V6
PLM solution from Microsoft Gold
Certified Partner Dassault Systmes.
The solution, which runs on the
Microsoft platform, gives employees a
single version of the truth through
one data management platform and
centralized database that runs on
Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Standard.
In addition, ENOVIA and its serviceoriented architecture (SOA) make it
possible for multidiscipline teams to
work on the same file from different
locations. Employees simply check
out the same file from the database,
and as people make changes to the
file, ENOVIA updates the file wherever
it is storedin the database and on
workstations.
Optimal Energy also decided to add
Dassault Systmes CATIA V5 and
ENOVIA 3DLIVE to its solution.
Accessible from ENOVIA, CATIA is a
product-design solution that provides
integrated CAD, CAM, and CAE tools.
ENOVIA 3DLive, part of ENOVIA,
federates data from multiple CAD and
enterprise systems and delivers it in
3-D, virtual workspaces that guide
users to the projects, people, and
information they need to collaborate.
Because the solution includes SQL
Server 2008 and works seamlessly
with Microsoft Office applications,
employees can increase efficiency
and minimize costs. For example, with
SQL Server 2008, IT personnel can
use built-in tools to implement
failover clustering and easily scale

databases. In addition, employees can

access and share engineering data
created in ENOVIA using familiar tools
such as Office Word 2007 and Office
Excel 2007. Having all of these tools
integrated in one platform was really
a huge selling point for us, says
Greeff. The Microsoft-based solution
from Dassault Systmes is also
simpler and easier to roll out than
solutions on other platforms. This
includes SQL Server, which can be
installed and managed by our IT
personnel.
Before it deployed its solution,
Optimal Energy evaluated how it
could use its innovative tools to
support new standardized processes.
Once the processes were established,
a team of four employees from
Optimal Energy implemented the
ENOVIA PLM system on a SOA running
the Windows Server 2008 Standard
operating system. Four server
computers with Intel processors
support the production environment
that includes a web server to facilitate
access to the solution; a license
server that manages access for all
users; an application server that
supports CATIA, ENOVIA, and ENOVIA
3DLive; and a database server that
contains all project data. Virtual
servers support a mirrored copy of
this environment, which employees
use to validate and test system
changes including software updates.
In the first quarter of 2011, Optimal
Energy will release the first phase of
its new solution into production.
Employees will use it for CAD, CAM,

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and CAE. They will also use it to

manage and share project
requirements and design documents.
In the second quarter of 2011, the
company expects to deploy ENOVIA
3DLive to facilitate data sharing with
several development partners in
Europe.

Benefits
By implementing a scalable PLM
solution from Dassault Systmes on
the Microsoft platform, Optimal
Energy expects to speed development
by 30 percent, accelerate data
access, cut costs, improve data
accuracy, simplify system
administration, and minimize learning
curves.
Speeds Development by 30
Percent
The new solution boosts collaboration
and accelerates time-to-market.
Greeff says, With our ENOVIA V6 PLM
solution, which runs on the highly
reliable and scalable Microsoft
platform including SQL Server 2008,
people can work at least 30 percent
faster and with much greater
accuracy.

The level of integration

between ENOVIA and
Microsoft Office has made
things a lot easier for us.
With our new solution, we
expect to improve data
accuracy tremendously.
Anton Greeff, Chief Mechanical Engineer,
Optimal Energy

For example, IT personnel can

automate backups with tools in SQL
Server 2008. In addition, with CATIA
and ENOVIA 3DLive, employees can
conduct virtual 3-D design reviews
and share them with other people
around the globe in real time. The
ability to view virtual prototypes
simultaneously also increases
efficiency and helps reduce the
number of physical prototypes. Builtin tools enhance communication
between people at different locations
so that when changes do need to be
made to a product, people can convey
those changes over the phone, email,
or IM while viewing the same design
documents. If the person you are
working with is online and available,
you can instantly start collaborating,
says Greeff. Being able to view the
same 3-D file or simulation at the
same time is a major time saver and
benefit.
Employees can also use the 3-D tools
to gain real-time insight into the
status of projects. One strength of
using ENOVIA 3DLive is that you can
color-code parts on a model according
to any criteria you want, explains
Greeff. A manager who may not
know how to use a CAD program like
CATIA can open the 3-D
representation of a product in 3DLive
and instantly see, by the color coding,
which parts are under or over budget.
The graphical outputs of 3DLive can
the also be embedded in Microsoft
Office documents to create reports
that convey much more visual
information. This means people do
not have to wade through printouts or

56

track projects manually. They dont

even need to have CATIA running on
their machine to visualize the
design.
Accelerates Data Access and Cuts
Costs
With the new solution, employees can
find the information they need in
seconds. People will spend less time
looking for files, says Greeff.
Everyone works on the same
platform, so we have a single version
of the truth, and you can see who has
access to the files.
In addition, people will no longer have
to spend time coordinating the
exchange of documents or waiting for
files transfers. It is fantastic knowing
that your data is sitting in one single
place, explains Greeff. You know
you can always find your information
there but, more importantly, other
people can find it there as well.
Travelling to Europe for every design
review will no longer be necessary. It
usually costs about $5,000 to fly
between South Africa and Europe, so
by minimizing travel, we can quickly
save hundreds of thousands of
dollars, says Greeff.
Optimal Energy expects other cost
savings as well. Greef explains, Less
third-party support will be needed.
And once we fully implement our new
solution, we will spend a lot less time
managing our databases.
Increases Data Accuracy

For More Information

For more information about
Microsoft products and services, call
the Microsoft Sales Information
Center at (800) 426-9400. In
Canada, call the Microsoft Canada
Information Centre at (877) 5682495. Customers in the United
States and Canada who are deaf or
hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft
text telephone (TTY/TDD) services
at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50
United States and Canada, please
contact your local Microsoft
subsidiary. To access information
using the World Wide Web, go to:
www.microsoft.com
For more information about
Dassault Systmes products and
services, call
(33) 1 61 62 61 62 or visit the
website at: www.3ds.com
For more information about Optimal
Energy products and services, call
(27) 21 462 7804 or visit the
website at: www.optimalenergy.com

Because the PLM solution from

Dassault Systmes interoperates with
Microsoft technologies, employees
can easily share data between
applications rather than converting
files or manually reentering
information in multiple systems. The
level of integration between ENOVIA
and Microsoft Office has made things
a lot easier for us, Greeff says. With
our new solution, we expect to
improve data accuracy
tremendously.

Microsoft Server Product Portfolio

Microsoft Office System

The Microsoft Office system is the
business worlds chosen environment
for information work, providing the
programs, servers, and services that
help you succeed by transforming
information into impact.
For more information about the
Microsoft Office system, go to:
www.microsoft.com/office

Dassault Systmes CATIA V5

Dassault Systmes ENOVIA 3DLive
Dassault Systmes ENOVIA V6

Microsoft Server Product Portfolio

Windows Server 2008 Standard
Microsoft SQL Server 2008
Partners
Standard
Dassault Systmes
Microsoft Office
Microsoft Office Excel 2007
Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007
Microsoft Office Word 2007

Document published January 2011

For more information about the

Microsoft server product portfolio, go
to:
www.microsoft.com/servers

Simplifies System Administration

and Reduces Learning Curves
By replacing eight disparate systems
with one solution built on the
Microsoft platform including SQL
Server 2008, Optimal Energy can
streamline system administration.
This includes spending less time
managing databases. Having our
systems consolidated in one place will
reduce IT workload significantly, says
Greeff. Scaling the system is really
just a matter of adding licenses. The
complexity of the system doesnt
increase just because you add more
users and data.

Software and Services

This case study is for informational purposes

only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

In addition, transitioning to the new

system requires almost no learning
curve for users. Almost everyone
already knows how to use Microsoft
Office applications, says Greeff. And
most of the time, employees will not
even be aware that theyre working
inside a PLM system, because they
work directly in applications such as
Office Word 2007. To them, these
applications will look and feel like
they always did.

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