Following a stringent evaluation of workload management applications, PSA Peugeot Citroën has chosen Platform Computing, the world’s largest distributed and grid computing software vendor, to provide end-to-end grid solutions for its car manufacturing division. PSA Peugeot Citroën will use Platform LSF HPC to speed up its design process and crash test simulation to enable faster development of safe, quality vehicles, while reducing the operational costs associated with automotive design.

PSA Peugeot Citroën is the second largest European manufacturer of passenger cars and utility vehicles. It has 30 factories around the world with 199,000 employees, of which 17,000 are engineers in research and development. On average, PSA has invested €2.25 billion per year in R&D and over the next three years it aims to launch up to 26 new makes of car.

To achieve this goal, PSA is increasing its computing resource every year. Currently, 50 per cent of CPUs are used to support crash testing activity (using applications such as RADIOSS), 25 per cent for aerodynamic and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) applications (mainly Fluent) and the remaining CPUs are used for a variety of other applications such as Noise, Vibration, Harshness (NVH).

As part of its focus on improving IT resources to help its business strategy, PSA is migrating from expensive UNIX systems to Linux to optimise the price/performance ratio. The increasing hardware to software cost ratio triggered the independent comparison of workload management products to compare price, technology and functionality, using Platform's LSF HPC as a benchmark. Following a rigorous set of tests against 104 technical questions, PSA ruled that no other product on the market could compete with Platform's portfolio of workload management tools for functionality and maturity of product.

Christophe Prigent, CAE/CAT Manager in the IT Department from PSA Peugeot Citroën commented, "Platform Computing is an established distributed computing company with mature products. These provide reliability and extensive functionality to ensure we achieve our tough goals for the next three years. LSF has proven to be robust and feature-rich, allowing our engineers to focus on the important job in hand - designing and manufacturing cars faster. Speed is of the essence in the automotive world, both on the track and getting cars to the show rooms. The correct decisions about IT infrastructure help us to remain competitive."

Songnian Zhou, CEO and co-founder of Platform Computing said, "The automotive market is very competitive and to stay ahead of the game, designers and manufacturers must harness the power that is sitting idle on existing IT infrastructure. By intelligently scheduling workload with Platform LSF HPC, PSA will be able to reduce the turn around time for calculations."

According to independent market analyst IDC, Grid computing in the Manufacturing Sector is projected to be a $2.6 billion market opportunity by 2006. IDC projects the total Grid opportunity at more than $13 billion by 2007, a compound annual growth rate of 83 percent.

With over ten years of experience in the automotive R&D and manufacturing sector, Platform provides software and services to many of the world’s largest industrial manufacturing organisations, including Pratt & Whitney and Space Systems/Loral.

About Platform Computing
Platform Computing, the global leader in distributed and grid computing solutions, helps enterprises accelerate key business applications, reduce operational and capital costs, guarantee service levels and optimize their IT resources. Platform's integrated desktop and enterprise grid software solutions are used by over 1,700 customers worldwide in the financial services, government, industrial manufacturing, electronics and life science industries to deliver higher quality products and services, improve business performance and maximize the return on IT investments. Founded in 1992, Platform has strategic relationships with Dell, HP, IBM, Apple, SAS and SGI, and the Industry's broadest application integration support. For more information visit http://www.platform.com.

About LSF HPC
Platform LSF HPC is software for managing and accelerating High Performance Computing (HPC) mission-critical workload. With Platform LSF HPC you can intelligently schedule parallel and serial workload providing the capability of solving large, grand challenge problems while utilizing the available computing resources at maximum capacity. It enables you to take full advantage of high performance network interconnects available on clustered systems and supercomputers. Platform LSF HPC is a proven solution that is currently running on several of the top 10 supercomputers, according to the rankings by the TOP500 project - a list of the 500 most powerful computer systems across the world.

For further information please contact:
Joanna Lane
Pleon UK for Platform Computing
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7479 5613
Email: Joanna.lane@pleon.com

Ghezala Ali-Sultan
Pleon UK for Platform Computing
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7479 5628
Email: Ghezala.ali-sultan@pleon.com