Toulouse & Cambridge, February 28th 2006

Fifteen Major Aerospace Companies Join Toulouse MDMC Workshop

Next Venue and Date Announced - Berlin, May 18

The cream of the European Aerospace industry was represented at last month's successful MDMC Workshop in Toulouse. The event was the first in a series designed to explain and discuss the possibilities of materials information management, with the aim of exploiting the potential of this valuable emerging technology in Europe.

The accurate, reliable, and secure use of materials information in product and process design is essential to every aerospace, energy, or defense organization. Yet few, if any, have successfully implemented robust systems to ensure best practice in managing and applying materials data. The Material Data Management Consortium (MDMC) is a collaborative project of leading engineering organizations established to address this issue. It has identified and solved many of the key practical challenges in enterprise-wide management of materials data and guided the development of a new software system, GRANTA MI, that meets these challenges. The ultimate goals of MDMC members are to reduce risk and liability and to save millions of dollars in improved design efficiency.

Membership of the MDMC, previously US-based, is now open to European organizations. The goal of this series of events is to share the experience and success of the project, enabling Europeans to assess its potential, so that the MDMC and GRANTA MI can also help to save millions of euros and pounds sterling!

At the January 26th meeting in Toulouse, three current members of the MDMC Steering Committee presented:

• Alcan Aerospace
• NASA Glenn Research Center
• Williams International

Presenters discussed achievements since their involvement with the Consortium began three years ago, describing their materials data organization and workflow prior to the MDMC, the reasons why some critical issues in this workflow were previously problematic, and how the MDMC approach provided solutions that led to demonstrable success.

Representatives of fifteen major European aerospace organizations participated in this workshop, and feedback was extremely positive. Attendees particularly enjoyed the practical demonstrations of the GRANTA MI system and the ability to discuss how it might meet their specific needs.

A second workshop will be held on May 18 during the Berlin Air Show. If you would like more information, please contact info@grantadesign.com or visit the event web page (below).

Links:
Berlin workshop details: http://www.mdmc.net/pages/demo.htm
Material Data Management Consortium: http://www.mdmc.net/