ANSYS reached agreement to acquire Granta Design, the premier provider of materials information technology for engineering and manufacturing. The acquisition “will give customers access to [a] rich source of intelligence for materials selection and management,” ANSYS said. The move “will expand ANSYS’ portfolio into this important area, giving ANSYS customers access to material intelligence, including data that is critical to successful simulations.” The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of 2019.
Terms were not disclosed; ANSYS said it will provide further details of the transaction and its impact on the company’s 2019 financial outlook after the closing. Headquartered in Cambridge, UK, Granta Design reports more than 180 employees. Its customers are a blue-chip list of the world’s leading engineering and manufacturing names—Airbus, General Motors, Emerson Electric, Lockheed Martin, NASA, Saudi Aramco Rolls-Royce and numerous others.
“Accurate, traceable and reliable materials information to make smart materials choices and to ensure simulation accuracy”
“With advances in the performance of metals, plastics and other materials, including innovations in areas such as composites and additive manufacturing, manufacturers have a wealth of material choices when developing products,” ANSYS notes. “At the same time, they require accurate, traceable and reliable materials information to make smart materials choices and to ensure simulation accuracy.” With this acquisition, ANSYS says its “customers can benefit from access to the world‘s premier system for managing corporate material intelligence and the market-leading solution for materials sources, selection and management.” For Granta customers, they “can expect even easier access to ANSYS’ gold-standard simulation technology.”
ANSYS: “Granta will continue its open ecosystem”
Granta has a long track record as a provider of application-vendor-neutral technology, one of the keys to its standing as the most widely used and accepted industry standard for materials intelligence today. Given that critical success element, ANSYS wisely pledged that “Granta will continue its open ecosystem, integrating with a wide range of leading product lifecycle management, CAD and computer-aided engineering solutions.”
Product line: GRANTA MI, CES Selector, Data Products, CES EduPack
Its products include GRANTA MI, the “leading system for enterprise materials information management,” and CES Selector, which enables users to explore the impact that different materials have on the behavior of their product designs. Its Data Products are a “comprehensive library of materials reference data” assembled by Granta. The company also develops CES EduPack, “the world’s leading teaching resource for materials topics in engineering, science, processing and design,” used by more than 1,000 universities worldwide, according to the company.
“Granta Design has pioneered the field of materials information technology,” said ANSYS vice president and general manager Shane Emswiler. “With materials engineering becoming an increasingly important aspect of product development, our customers require high-quality and comprehensive materials information for accurate simulation results. Integrating Granta’s solutions into the ANSYS portfolio will provide a seamless user experience—and enable our customers to innovate like never before.”
“For nearly 50 years, ANSYS has been the leader in engineering simulation,” said David Cebon, cofounder and managing director of Granta Design. “Combining that expertise with Granta’s decades of experience in material intelligence will help our customers make smarter decisions when developing their next-generation products.”
