Automakers are using French-born manufacturing software to improve the machining and assembly of their vehicles. Carmakers use ILOG software to determine the order of building vehicles that will optimize production, maximizing return on investment. A more recent French software entrant in the Detroit area is ILOG, which opened a sales and technical support office in Southfield, Michigan, in May 2000, to serve the US automotive market. Delmia Corp.’s, a French company, labs in Troy, Paris, Montreal, Stuttgart, and Bangalore, India, customize software services to design, simulate, optimize, and control production activities, which account for up to 80 percent of the cost of manufactured goods. Delmia adapted three of its proprietary software tools to form the core software of the V-Comm Project. The Delmia Assembly Module enables users to evaluate alternative sequences of assembly to achieve the optimal lean solution. Toyota engineers working in V-Comm rooms at 20 Toyota locations in Japan, Europe, and North America use the Delmia software to create virtual prototypes that are projected on large screens, and to observe the visual data in three dimensions.

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