PARIS—(BUSINESS WIRE)—July 24, 2008— ESI Group (ESIN FR0004110310), a pioneer and world-leading supplier of digital simulation software for prototyping and manufacturing processes, announced today the release of PAM-ASSEMBLY 2008, the ideal simulation software tool for improving welding and welding assembly processes. PAM-ASSEMBLY helps design engineers and manufacturers significantly reduce the required amount of prototyping and distortion repair work, thus improving the quality of welded products. A key benefit of PAM-ASSEMBLY is the user’s ability to quickly identify both the direction and magnitude of welding distortion, which allows implementation of both specific measures to keep welding distortion within prescribed tolerances, and development of a suitable weld plan.

PAM-ASSEMBLY 2008 features three major enhancements addressing market demands:

• Completely revised graphic user interface (GUI) allows significant simplification of the simulation workflow. The remodeled GUI now offers a new, welding-process driven workflow designed to make the graphic interaction as user-friendly as possible.
• Significant enhancements to the automatic meshing capabilities. With Version 2008 the shell meshes of unconnected components are now generated fully automatically, which in some cases can save users up to 90% of the previously required modeling time.
• Increased efficiencies in computation and process monitoring. Version 2008 allows users to easily compute welding distortion in only a few hours, even for very large welded designs comprising hundreds of meters of weld joints.

“ESI Group’s PAM-ASSEMBLY 2008 offers unparalleled value to design engineers and manufacturers, allowing them to easily and efficiently perform a wide variety of virtual welding engineering tasks, ranging from chassis and bodies of vehicles to components and designs in Civil Engineering, Energy, and Heavy Industry,” said Harald Porzner, ESI Group’s Product Manager for Welding Products. “Engineers now have the ability to get virtual answers that were previously unimaginable. This allows them to significantly improve their business management ‘on-demand’, by always having the best possible tool available for the particular task,” he concluded.

About ESI Group

ESI Group is a world-leading supplier and pioneer of digital simulation software for prototyping and manufacturing processes that take into account the physics of materials. ESI Group has developed an extensive suite of coherent, industry-oriented applications to realistically simulate a product’s behavior during testing, to fine-tune manufacturing processes in accordance with desired product performance, and to evaluate the environment’s impact on product performance. ESI Group’s products represent a unique collaborative and open virtual engineering environment known as the Virtual Try-Out Space, enabling virtual prototypes to be improved in a continuous and collaborative manner while eliminating the need for physical prototypes during product development. The company employs over 700 high-level specialists worldwide covering more than 30 countries. ESI Group is listed in compartment C of Euronext Paris. For further information, visit www.esi-group.com.

Virtual Try-Out Space® is a registered trademark of ESI Group. All other products, names or companies are the brands or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

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