NEEDHAM, Mass., Dec. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/-- PTC (Nasdaq: PMTC), the
product development company(TM), continues to deliver on its commitment to the
global automotive industry, evidenced by a number of significant recent sales.
As a result, PTC has increased its installed base in the automotive industry
to approximately 3,000 customers.
Of special note is PTC's leadership and focus in Powertrain development
between both OEM's and the extended supply chain, where manufacturers continue
to standardize on PTC solutions in their Powertrain organizations. Many of the
top 40 automakers, tier one suppliers and engineering service companies use
PTC solutions for Powertrain development including BMW, Volkswagen, Fiat,
Ferrari, Volvo Truck, Daihatsu, Hino Motors, ZF, Siemens VDO Automotive, INA,
Bosch Rexroth, Robert Bosch, Eaton, Dana, Federal Mogul, Cummins, AVL, First
Auto Works and Tata engineering.
Notable wins during the second half of PTC's fiscal 2003 (ended September
30,2003) include BMW, Chang An Automobile, Dongfeng Automobile, Shaanxi
Automobile; Toyota Motor Corporation and Volkswagen.
"We understand the business processes that our automotive customers follow
and the issues they face," says Bill Berutti, PTC Senior Vice President of
Marketing and Strategy. "We know many of these companies are striving to
improve their competitive position by reducing development times and reliance
on physical prototypes as they standardize their engineering processes. This
requires tools that provide virtual development and workflow capabilities from
concept to production, together with coordination with the extended supply
chain. PTC has developed the latest versions of its products to address these
industry specific trends and requirements and will continue to address those
needs in the future."
Webasto, a supplier of sunroofs, convertible car-top systems, modular roof
systems and temperature management, agrees. The company needed to standardize
processes such as change management worldwide and needed to integrate
heterogeneous CAD-systems and different installations of ERP-systems into a
leading product data management (PDM) backbone system. Using PTC Solutions,
Webasto accomplished this and also shortened development time by making data
easy to find and available worldwide. It also accelerated international
coordination from five days to just a few minutes.
Webasto Board Member Dr. Wolfgang Thurow, confirms that point: "PTC's
Windchill significantly improves our internal and external collaboration.
Since we develop our products in global teams worldwide, the ability to
efficiently communicate on a global level gives us a great competitive
advantage."
Leading the Way in 3-D Visualization
3-D visualization is currently a pervasive cross-functional requirement in
the automotive industry as it adopts product lifecycle management (PLM). PTC
is one of the first members of the JT Open initiative along with global
automotive leaders such as Ford and General Motors. Members are adopting the
JT format as a common data format for visual collaboration and
interoperability.
The Volkswagen group's selection of PTC's ProductView software as a group-
wide standard for the visualization of 3-D data created in the product
development process is a validation of the importance of 3-D visualization.
"The fact that we have chosen PTC's ProductView as the corporate visualization
solution emphasizes the spread of 3-D-based working processes within the
Volkswagen group and its increasing penetration with virtual product
development," says Dr. Trac Tang, Director of IS Product Development at the
group's headquarters in Wolfsburg, Germany.
"The premier task of PTC's ProductView is to provide a uniform tool for
the visualization of 3-D data throughout the wide array of corporate
processes. As a part of our integrated product data management infrastructure
(iPDM), ProductView is also available to users who have no access to a CAD
workstation," Dr. Tang continues.
Driving the "Higher Quality at Lower Cost" Imperative
"Today the Automotive industry is faced with providing innovative product
concepts at continuously reducing price premiums," says Dhiren Verma, Director
of Vertical Market Development at PTC. 'This is further exacerbated by
overcapacity and the resulting incentive wars seen recently. Correspondingly,
reducing product and manufacturing costs are imperative in this competitive
environment. Our Create, Collaborate and Control solutions help clients
increase design reuse and develop higher quality, lower cost products."
ArvinMeritor Inc., a PTC customer and a premier $7-billion global supplier of
a broad range of integrated systems, modules and components to the motor
vehicle industry, needed to design a new generation tandem axle with
integrated bearing cage, new sets of pinions and gear sets to satisfy various
gear ratios. Using PTC's Pro/E solution enabled ArvinMeritor to shorten
product development cycle by 45%, accelerate time-to-market by 30% and reduce
product development costs by 35%.
"PTC Solutions has helped us by cutting time-to-market and development
costs. This leads to a higher market share and increased revenue," says
ArvinMeritor Inc. design engineer Kumar Ramaiah.
Relentless Pursuit of Extracting Value from Product Development
To ensure a strong focus on the critical issues in this industry, PTC and
RWTH Aachen, a top European center for manufacturing research, have initiated
a Global Research Study with leading Automotive OEM's and Suppliers worldwide
to better understand their product development strategies and capabilities,
and the resulting impact on their financial performance. Senior executives,
responsible for leading new product development activities, have been
surveyed. Conclusions and findings are being prepared by industry experts and
will be available in early 2004. PTC will use these results to further define
the critical success factors for its automotive customers.
About PTC
PTC develops, markets, and supports software solutions that help
manufacturers win with superior products. PTC is the world's largest software
company with a total commitment to product development. The company services
more than 35,000 customers worldwide. Further information on PTC is available
at http://www.ptc.com or call 1-888-782-3776, ext. 901
Except for the historical information contained herein, matters discussed in
this news release may constitute forward-looking statements that involve risks
and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from
those projected. These include: the effective coordinate of our joint research
and development initiatives; our successful development and integration of the
technology necessary to offer an integrated Product Development System for an
expanded user base that adequately responds to evolving customer requirements;
the success of our partnering initiatives; the success of our cost reduction
initiatives; and the effects of a weakening economy which may impact the
overall demand for software and related services; as well as other risks and
uncertainties detailed from time to time in reports filed by PTC with the
Securities and Exchange Commission, including the Company's most recent
reports on Form 10-K and 10-Q. The announcement of any particular order is
not necessarily indicative of the timing of recognition of revenue from such
order or the level of revenue for any particular period.
PTC and its logo, Product First, The Product Development Company, Create
Collaborate Control, Simple Powerful Connected, Pro/ENGINEER, Wildfire,
Windchill, and all PTC product names and logos are trademarks or registered
trademarks of Parametric Technology Corporation or its subsidiaries in the
United States and in other countries.
Investor Contact
Meredith Mendola
781-370-6151
mmendola@ptc.com
Press Contact
Joe Gavaghan
781-370-5074
jgavaghan@ptc.com
SOURCE PTC
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Related links:
http://www.ptc.com
CONTACT:
Meredith Mendola, Investor Contact,
+1-781-370-6151, mmendola@ptc.com, or Joe Gavaghan, Press
Contact, +1-781-370-5074, jgavaghan@ptc.com, both of PTC
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