9 March 2008

Thales Alenia Space, a leading European designer and manufacturer of satellites for telecommunications, defence, navigation and Earth observation, is studying the implementation of an advanced system – combining Dassault Systèmes’ 3DVIA Composer with the 2007 Microsoft Office system and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 – that radically improves its satellite assembly processes.

“A key challenge for us is to combine written and 3D information and instructions for use on the clean-room assembly floor,” said Pierre Lipsky, satellite assembly director at Thales Alenia Space. “The combination of 3DVIA Composer and Office 2007 should make it possible to create composite documents managed by Office SharePoint Server 2007 and to use that knowledge during the actual assembly process. This will help to reduce errors in assembly and should improve future products by capturing knowledge during manufacturing that can be integrated into future products.”

“We are thrilled to see SharePoint products and technologies deployed for use in world-class quality processes,” said Thomas Rizzo, director of SharePoint at Microsoft. “The innovations that our partners, such as Dassault Systèmes, bring to market on top of our platform are a fulfilment of our vision for SharePoint Server 2007 and the 2007 Office system as the heart of productivity infrastructure.”

With the new solution in place, any issues discovered in Thales Alenia Space’s assembly procedures can be instantly described on a Tablet PC in the clean-room using the 3DVIA Composer-created content. The implementation of an Office 2007 application link to that process should allow that knowledge to be quickly shared with the entire team via Office SharePoint Server 2007. Deployment of this system should be fast and easy because of users’ familiarity with desktop content-creation tools like Microsoft Office Word and 3DVIA Composer, and Office SharePoint Server’s rapid site development system.

“Thales Alenia Space’s customers are demanding ever-shorter delivery times while simultaneously demanding product perfection when deployed in Earth orbit,” said Bruno Delahaye, VP of 3DVIA enterprise products at Dassault Systèmes. “We are pleased to have been able to provide the technology and to have worked with Microsoft to deliver this innovative and compelling system to Thales Alenia Space.”

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