Last week, I participated in the annual 3DEXPERIENCE User Conference, organized by the ENOVIA and NETVIBES brands. With approximately 250 attendees, the 2-day conference on the High-Tech Campus in Eindhoven was fully booked.

My PDM/PLM career started in 1990 in Eindhoven.

First, I spent a significant part of my school life there, and later, I became a physics teacher in Eindhoven. Then, I got infected by CAD and data management, discovering SmarTeam, and the rest is history.

As I wrote in my last year’s post, the 3DEXPERIENCE conference always feels like a reunion, as I have worked most of my time in the SmarTeam, ENOVIA, and 3DEXPERIENCE Eco-system.

 

Innovation Drivers in the Generative Economy

Stephane Declee and Morgan Zimmerman kicked off the conference with their keynote, talking about the business theme for 2024: the Generative Economy. Where the initial focus was on the Experience Economy and emotion, the Generative Economy includes Sustainability. It is a clever move as the word Sustainability, like Digital Transformation, has become such a generic term. The Generative Economy clearly explains that the aim is to be sustainable for the planet.

Stephane and Morgan talked about the importance of the virtual twin, which is different from digital twins. A virtual twin typically refers to a broader concept that encompasses not only the physical characteristics and behavior of an object or system but also its environment, interactions, and context within a virtual or simulated world. Virtual Twins are crucial to developing sustainable solutions.

Morgan concluded the session by describing the characteristics of the data-driven 3DEXPERIENCE platform and its AI fundamentals, illustrating all the facets of the mix of a System of Record (traditional PLM) and Systems of Record (MODSIM).

 

3DEXPERIENCE for All at automation.eXpress

Daniel Schöpf, CEO and founder of automation.eXpress GmbH, gave a passionate story about why, for his business, the 3DEXPERIENCE platform is the only environment for product development, collaboration and sales.

Automation.eXpress is a young but typical Engineering To Order company building special machinery and services in dedicated projects, which means that every project, from sales to delivery, requires a lot of communication.

For that reason, Daniel insisted all employees to communicate using the 3DEXPERIENCE platform on the cloud. So, there are no separate emails, chats, or other siloed systems.

Everyone should work connected to the project and the product as they need to deliver projects as efficiently and fast as possible.

Daniel made this decision based on his 20 years of experience in traditional ways of working—the coordinated approach. Now, starting from scratch in a new company without a legacy, Daniel chose the connected approach, an ideal fit for his organization, and using the cloud solution as a scalable solution, an essential criterium for a startup company.

My conclusion is that this example shows the unique situation of an inspired leader with 20 years of experience in this business who does not choose ways of working from the past but starts a new company in the same industry, but now based on a modern platform approach instead of individual traditional tools.

 

 

Augment Me Through Innovative Technology

Dr. Cara Antoine gave an inspiring keynote based on her own life experience and lessons learned from working in various industries, a major oil & gas company and major high-tech hardware and software brands. Currently, she is an EVP and the Chief Technology, Innovation & Portfolio Officer at Capgemini.

She explained how a life-threatening infection that caused blindness in one of her eyes inspired her to find ways to augment herself to keep on functioning.

With that, she drew a parallel with humanity, who continuously have been augmenting themselves from the prehistoric day to now at an ever-increasing speed of change.

The current augmentation is the digital revolution. Digital technology is coming, and you need to be prepared to survive – it is Innovate of Abdicate.

Dr. Cara continued expressing the need to invest in innovation (me: it was not better in the past 😉 ) – and, of course, with an economic purpose; however, it should go hand in hand with social progress (gender diversity) and creating a sustainable planet (innovation is needed here).

Besides the focus on innovation drivers, Dr. Cara always connected her message to personal interaction. Her recently published book Make it Personal describes the importance of personal interaction, even if the topics can be very technical or complex.

I read the book with great pleasure, and it was one of the cornerstones of the panel discussion next.

 

It is all about people…

It might be strange to have a session like this in an ENOVIA/NETVIBES User Conference; however, it is another illustration that we are not just talking about technology and tools.

I was happy to introduce and moderate this panel discussion,also using the iconic Share PLM image,  which is close to my heart.

The panelists, Dr. Cara Antoine, Daniel Schöpf, and Florens Wolters, each actively led transformational initiatives with their companies.

We discussed questions related to culture, personal leadership and involvement and concluded with many insights, including “Create chemistry, identify a passion, empower diversity, and make a connection as it could make/break your relationship, were discussed.

 

And it is about processes.

Another trend I discovered is that cloud-based business platforms, like the 3DEXERIENCE platform, switch the focus from discussing functions and features in tools to establishing platform-based environments, where the focus is more on data-driven and connected processes.

Some examples:

Data Driven Quality at Suzlon Energy Ltd.

Florens Wolters, who also participated in the panel discussion “It is all about people ..” explained how he took the lead to reimagine the Sulon Energy Quality Management System using the 3DEXPERIENCE platform and ENOVIA from a disconnected, fragmented, document-driven Quality Management System with many findings in 2020 to a fully integrated data-driven management system with zero findings in 2023.

It is an illustration that a modern data-driven approach in a connected environment brings higher value to the organization as all stakeholders in the addressed solution work within an integrated, real-time environment. No time is wasted to search for related information.

Of course, there is the organizational change management needed to convince people not to work in their favorite siloes system, which might be dedicated to the job, but not designed for a connected future.

The image to the left was also a part of the “It is all about people”- session.

 

Enterprise Virtual Twin at Renault Group

The presentation of Renault was also an exciting surprise. Last year, they shared the scope of the Renaulution project at the conference (see also my post: The week after the 3DEXPERIENCE conference 2023).

Here, Renault mentioned that they would start using the 3DEXPERIENCE platform as an enterprise business platform instead of a traditional engineering tool.

Their presentation today, which was related to their Engineering Virtual Twin, was an example of that. Instead of using their document-based SCR (Système de Conception Renault – the Renault Design System) with over 1000 documents describing processes connected to over a hundred KPI, they have been modeling their whole business architecture and processes in UAF using a Systems of System Approach.

The image above shows Franck Gana, Renault’s engineering – transformation chief officer, explaining the approach. We could write an entire article about the details of how, again, the 3DEXPERIENCE platform can be used to provide a real-time virtual twin of the actual business processes, ensuring everyone is working on the same referential.

 

Bringing Business Collaboration to the Next Level with Business Experiences

To conclude this section about the shifting focus toward people and processes instead of system features, Alizée Meissonnier Aubin and Antoine Gravot introduced a new offering from 3DS, the marketplace for Business Experiences.


According to the HBR article, workers switch an average of 1200 times per day between applications, leading to 9 % of their time reorienting themselves after toggling.

1200 is a high number and a plea for working in a collaboration platform instead of siloed systems (the Systems of Engagement, in my terminology – data-driven, real-time connected). The story has been told before by Daniel Schöpf, Florens Wolters and Franck Gana, who shared the benefits of working in a connected collaboration environment.

The announced marketplace will be a place where customers can download Business Experiences.

There is was more ….

There were several engaging presentations and workshops during the conference. But, as we reach 1500 words, I will mention just two of them, which I hope to come back to in a later post with more detail.

  • Delivering Sustainable & Eco Design with the 3DS LCA Solution

    Valentin Tofana from Comau, an Italian multinational company in the automation and committed to more sustainable products. In the last context Valentin   shared his experiences and lessons learned starting to use the 3DS LifeCycle Assessment tools on the 3DEXPERIENCE platform.
    This session gave such a clear overview that we will come back with the PLM Green Global Alliance in a separate interview.
  • Beyond PLM. Productivity is the Key to Sustainable Business
    Neerav MEHTA from L&T Energy Hydrocarbon demonstrated how they currently have implemented a virtual twin of the plant, allowing everyone to navigate, collaborate and explore all activities related to the plant.I was promoting this concept in 2013 also for Oil & Gas EPC companies, at that time, an immense performance and integration challenge. (PLM for all industries) Now, ten years later, thanks to the capabilities of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, it has become a workable reality. Impressive.

 

Conclusion

Again, I learned a lot during these days, seeing the architecture of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform growing (image below). In addition, more and more companies are shifting their focus to real-time collaboration processes in the cloud on a connected platform. Their testimonies illustrate that to be sustainable in business, you have to augment yourself with digital.

Note: Dassault Systemes did not cover any of the cost for me attending this conference. I picked the topics close to my heart and got encouraged by all the conversations I had.