IBM Japan Ltd, Mazda Ltd, and French company ESI SA have jointly developed a virtual machining centre that IBM Japan is marketing. The system is designed for testing of machine tool pressings of car parts on a workstation. The system is called PAM-Stamp and runs on the RS/6000. The software interfaces with crash simulation software PAM-Crash, which is used by almost all car-makers in Japan. IBM Japan predicts that use of the system can reduce car parts design and testing costs and time by 20% to 30% from the start, growing to 50% over time. Price for a standard configuration system running on the high-end RS/6000 Model 560 costs around $243,000.
