D.H. Brown Associates, Inc. Announces Keynote Speaker for Product Lifecycle Management Road Map 2002

Business Wire, Sept 4, 2002

Business Editors

PORT CHESTER, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 4, 2002

Join us to hear directly the practical lessons for success from the Vice President, Advanced Enterprise Initiatives, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company, William C. Kessler. Dr. Kessler shares his experience with The Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program.

This Lockheed Martin initiative defines cost-effective, next-generation strike aircraft weapons systems for the U.S. Air Force, Navy, Marines and U.S. allies. Each has unique requirements. For example, the U.S. Air Force requires an affordable stealth aircraft that can match or better the performance of an F-16.

JSF leverages extensive commonality among the variants for each of the services, and exploits development efforts across each service as well. The three variants of the joint design all share a common structure that includes the same fuselage and internal weapons bay. All models of the Lockheed Martin design feature common structural geometries, identical wing sweeps, and similar tail shapes.

In developing future JSF products, team members collaborate in a virtual workspace created by shared databases and common audio, video, and computer systems across eleven times zones. Cooperation allows the five services to share development costs, greatly leveraging the effort.

Coherent, integrated product data represents a fundamental requirement for collaboration in delivering a product that will perform as required, within cost and schedule constraints. The Distributed Product Description (DPD) represents the product data needed to evaluate the technical maturity of the JSF Air System developmental baseline design. DPD establishes a logically consistent and integrated design of the whole aircraft across its full lifecycle. Thus, JSF Air System DPD is the product data needed to evaluate the technical maturity of the baseline design, and is critical to the success of the JSF Program.

The title of Dr. Kessler's talk is "The Vision and Reality of Global Collaborative Design for JSF." Dr. William C. (Bill) Kessler was named Vice President, Advanced Enterprise Initiatives at Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company in December 2001. As the executive architect for initiatives at LM Aero covering advanced operating performance, Dr. Kessler ensures the full realization of the company's concept of operations and positions the LM Aero enterprise architecture to capably support future aerospace power projection requirements.

Sponsored by DH Brown Associates, Inc.(TM) (DHBA), Product Lifecycle Management Road Map 2002(TM) will be held October 29-30, Dearborn, MI.

Participants at the conference join top analysts from D.H. Brown Associates, Inc., and leading industry implementers and developers, who are shaping a new generation of PLM processes, technologies, and business strategies. Product Lifecycle Management Road Map 2002(TM) is a strategic, in-depth conference focused on collaborative design, knowledge capture and reuse, collaborative CAE, high-integrity market-oriented product definition, physical architecture, manufacturing simulation, sourcing, product sales configuration, marketability, metrics, and much more.

Other speakers include William Li, President and CEO, Build-to-Order, Inc.; Gene Coffman, Manager, Virtual PD and Manufacturing, Ford Motor Company; and Matt Cordner, Director of Operations, Business Systems, Bell Helicopter Textron Inc.

For additional information on Product Lifecycle Management Road Map(TM) 2002, please e-mail Cheryl Peck, cheryl@dhbrown.com or call Lily Ballantyne toll-free, 800-253-1799 ext. 232.