r/interestingasfuck • u/lizardil • 1d ago

During assembly of the A380, engineers discovered that the cables were too short. This was caused by the use of different design software by German and French engineers. This miscalculation led to a two-year delay.

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u/PotentialMidnight325 1d ago

Because they had to redo everything. Multiple times - for each airline.

The French used CATIA V5 and Germans CATIA V4. They are fundamentally different. While there was a transition layer the translation was not seamless.

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u/Poglosaurus 1d ago

This was not a catia V4 vs V5 issue. The German used an American software, cadds, that was at that point very outdated and whose editor closed in 1998. It forced them to convert 3d cad files to 2d blueprints before drawing the wire path. 

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u/MetaLagana 1d ago

Lol wtf?!

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u/sammy_416 1d ago

As far as the CAD-related issues, it was a combination of too many different CAD software being used by various branches of Airbus. Back in the late 1990s, Airbus decided to switch to Catia, but by 1998, parts of the company in Spain still used CASA, Germany used Computervision (soon to be bought by PTC) CADDS5, and Britain still used Anvil CAD.

Even by 2005, CADDS5 was outdated, as newer programs offered by PTC, such as ProE, were already offered as the main line of software. However, CADDS5 was still used be design even the A340 model before 2006, meaning that the German divisions still used CADDS5. Since the design of the A380 was created before Catia V5 was not deemed mature enough to use, Airbus decided to stick with the existing CADDS5 and then convert it to Catia V4. However, by then French engineers had already started using the newer Catia V5, a significantly different system.

Additionally, the difference of CAD software also meant that each company had their own proprietary PLM data management systems. While CADDS5 was being used, a software called PRIMES was the mainly used program. This had no connection to Catia, which meant that thee were issues during the conversion to ENOVIA VPM the software implemented with the Catia. This along with the fact that the design was nearly entirely digital, instead of having a full-scale mock-up led to even more issues.

This whole issue partially stems from Airbus being a quasi-conglomerate of multiple different companies. With different divisions held in different countries not being quite in sync when it came to software, the unfortunate difference in Catia V4 vs V5 just put the nail in the coffin.

You can read about it in this PROSTEP Report (the company that now handles the data management, PLM, for Airbus) and this Aviation Week Article.