Accenture Japan completes purchase of DI Square’s engineering arm

Around 70 professionals from DI Square have joined Accenture’s Industry X practice in Japan following its carve-out acquisition of DI Square’s engineering business.

Following the deal announced in June, global professional services firm Accenture has now completed the acquisition of the engineering solutions business of Japanese company DI Square, which focuses on product life-cycle management (PLM) and application life-cycle management (ALM) systems integration. The new business will be folded into Accenture’s Industry X group in Japan.

“Manufacturing companies must digitise not just the enterprise but their entire operating value chains,” said Shinichiro Kohno, head of Accenture Industry X in Japan. “The capabilities we have acquired from DI Square wll expand our expertise for PLM and ALM, which are at the intersection of engineering and manufacturing. Manufacturers have a growing need for help in these areas and we want to be their partner of choice for a comprehensive digital transformation.”

The acquisition – the terms of which were not disclosed – enhances Accenture’s engineering expertise for automotive industry and other manufacturing clients in Japan and beyond, with 3D computer-aided design (CAD), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), modular design and model-based systems engineering (MBSE) among DI Square’s advanced engineering specialities. The business has a pedigree dating back more than three decades to 1987.

Capitalising on its existing artificial intelligence and digital twin expertise, Accenture says that its new capabilities will enable it to build systems and solutions that can optimise and integrate clients’ engineering processes end-to-end, from conceptual design through to integration, operation and maintenance. It gives the example of the dramatically increasing engineering complexity and efficiency challenges faced by automakers due to ever greater intelligent vehicle demands.

Accenture also noted that DI Square is a key implementation partner for PLM solutions from French software firm Dassault Systèmes, which is in turn one of Accenture’s strategic alliance partners and is widely adopted among Japanese manufacturers and automotive players.

Meanwhile, Accenture and DI Square will continue to collaborate to streamline clients’ acquisition of software licenses and hardware for PLM and ALM implementations.

While not especially out of the ordinary amid Accenture’s fevered acquisition spree of recent times the firm has been busy of late bolstering its Industry X line, including June’s purchase of German engineering advisory umlaut – which added approximately 4,200 professionals across 50 offices worldwide.

A month earlier the firm bought Australian heavy industry control systems consultancy Electro 80, while also adding Myrtle of the US and Brazil’s Pollux over the past twelve months.