PLM and innovation

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Manufacturing

Commentary:

12 September 2007

Dassault Systèmes' Bernard Charlès describes how nowadays innovation in manufacturing is the result of pervasive collaboration and not just good research.

Having the best researchers around isn’t necessarily enough to succeed nowadays, because innovation does not belong exclusively to engineers and technicians. Rather, it springs from collaboration between a plethora of viewpoints and ways of thinking. Truly there are no limits to what we can create.

Design software today allows users to create any object type or shape intuitively. To enable such manipulation, extremely complex mathematical models are loaded into computers. They are invisible, but they are what make simulations and virtual creations possible. When these tools become intrinsically collaborative, they open paths to exciting new realms of the imagination, ushering in ‘co-innovation’.

New digital development and 3D product lifecycle management (PLM) tools are bringing virtual resources to the world of industry. This revolution impacts not only product design, but the entire manufacturing process, spanning production, maintenance and recycling. Three-dimensional software allows users to optimise products, spot and eliminate malfunctions and production errors, and thus reduce production cycles.

A huge number of varied products are created using 3D design and simulation software. Before emerging into the physical world, all these products had a virtual existence as a ‘perfect’ 3D representation. Such models make it possible to share design and production processes, to simulate and anticipate problems, and to manage resources, all before making any type of physical model.

The 3D digital revolution creates new opportunities to reallocate the value chain. Previously, all expertise was essentially embodied in the end product. Today, software is continually enhanced with new expertise that can be captured, stored and shared in a virtual world, enabling simulation of manufacturing processes and novel types of collaboration.

These trends also demand that we rethink the enterprise of tomorrow. The fundamental issues are human and organisational, since optimum use of technology requires new methods of learning, new roles, and new types of leadership. What’s more, the ‘network effect’ multiplies gains; improvements are integrated right in the software and expertise is no longer limited to the local level but can be shared, thus spreading the benefits of progress.

The ability to innovate was long perceived as the personal capability of only a handful of people. Today, it has taken on a more collaborative character. Innovation is the result of processes, methodologies and tools that must be identified and mastered. Innovation comes from ways of thinking that can be taught and shared. This is why there is a pressing need to encourage new attitudes towards teamwork, cooperation and the ways we learn.

However, there is no worry of a standardisation of offerings; far from it. It is evident that knowledge and the virtualisation of knowledge; meaning capitalising on it, enriching it and sharing it, are the driving forces behind imagining products, processes and services capable of expanding offerings, thus ensuring that growth benefits everyone.

True creation necessitates imagining the future. A future that supposes working in an open world with partners, customers, research centres and universities. These elements complement one another, but are also potential competitors. Collaborative innovation is a sort of alchemy that balances the dynamics of an ecosystem skilfully, and with continual readjustment, to create both wealth and progress. The virtual world represents tremendous opportunities to learn, discover and share differently. It gives us the chance to experiment in a world where mistakes are permitted and where the impossible can be envisioned. Thanks to this, our very real world swells with products that are more suited to people, and more suited to the environment that surrounds us.

Bernard Charlès is president and CEO at Dassault Systèmes.

This article first appeared in the Autumn 2007 issue of Prime magazine.