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PDT Europe is over, and it was this year a surprising aligned conference, showing that ideas and concepts align more and more for modern PLM. Håkan Kårdén opened the conference mentioning the event was fully booked, about 160 attendees from over 19 countries. With a typical attendance of approx. 120 participants, this showed the theme of the conference: Continuous Transformation of PLM to support the Lifecycle Model-Based Enterprise was very attractive and real. You can find a history of tweets following the hashtag #pdte17

Setting the scene

Peter Bilello from CIMdata kicked-off by bringing some structure related to the various Model-Based areas and Digital Thread. Peter started by mentioning that technology is the least important issue as organization culture, changing processing and adapting people skills are more critical factors for a successful adoption of modern PLM. Something that would repeatedly be confirmed by other speakers during the conference.

Peter presented a nice slide bringing the Model-Based terminology together on one page. Next, Peter took us through various digital threads in the different stages of the product lifecycle. Peter concluded with the message that we are still in a learning process redefining optimal processes for PLM, using Model-Based approaches and Digital Threads and thanks (or due) to digitalization these changes will be rapid. Ending with an overall conclusion that we should keep in mind:

It isn’t about what we call digitalization; It is about delivering value to customers and all other stakeholders of the enterprise

Next Marc Halpern busted the Myth of Digital Twins (according to his session title) and looked into realistic planning them. I am not sure if Marc smashed some of the myths although it is sure Digital Twin is at the top of the hype cycle and we are all starting to look for practical implementations. A digital twin can have many appearances and depends on its usage. For sure it is not just a 3D Virtual model.

There are still many areas to consider when implementing a digital twin for your products. Depending on what and how you apply the connection between the virtual and the physical model, you have to consider where your vendor really is in maturity and avoid lock in on his approach. In particular, in these early stages, you are not sure which technology will last longer, and data ownership and confidentially will play an important role. And opposite to quick wins make sure your digital twin is open and use as much as possible open standards to stay open for the future, which also means keep aiming for working with multiple vendors.

Industry sessions

Next, we had industry-focused sessions related to a lifecycle Model-Based enterprise and later in the afternoon a session from Outotec with the title: Managing Installed Base to Unlock Service opportunities.

The first presentation from Väino Tarandi, professor in IT in Construction at KTH Sweden presented his findings related to BIM and GIS in the context of the lifecycle, a test bed where PLCS meets IFC. Interesting as I have been involved in BIM Level 3 discussions in the UK, which was already an operational challenge for stakeholders in the construction industry now extended with the concept of the lifecycle. So far these projects are at the academic level, and I am still waiting for companies to push and discover the full benefits of an integrated approach.

Concepts for the industrial approach could be learned from Outotec as you might understand later in this post. Of course the difference is that Outotec is aiming for data ownership along the lifecycle, where in case of the construction industries, each silo often is handled by a different contractor.

Fredrik Ekström from Swedish Transport Administration shared his challenges of managing assets for both road and railway transport – see image on the left. I have worked around this domain in the Netherlands, where asset management for infrastructure and asset management for the rail infrastructure are managed in two different organizations. I believe Fredrik (and similar organizations) could learn from the concepts in other industries. Again Outotec’s example is also about having relevant information to increase service capabilities, where the Swedish Transport Administration is aiming to have the right data for their services. When you look at the challenges reported by Fredrik, I assume he can find the answers in other industry concepts.

Outotec’s presentation related to managing installed base and unlock service opportunities explained by Sami Grönstrand and Helena Guiterrez was besides entertaining easy to digest content and well-paced. Without being academic, they explained somehow the challenges of a company with existing systems in place moving towards concepts of a digital twin and the related data management and quality issues. Their practical example illustrated that if you have a clear target, understanding better a customer specific environment to sell better services, can be achieved by rational thinking and doing, a typical Finish approach. This all including the “bi-modal approach” and people change management.

Future Automotive

Ivar Hammarstadt, Senior Analyst Technology Intelligence for Volvo Cars Corporation entertained us with a projection toward the future based on 160 years of automotive industry. Interesting as electrical did not seem to be the only way to go for a sustainable future depending on operational performance demands.

Next Jeanette Nilsson and Daniel Adin from Volvo Group Truck shared their findings related to an evaluation project for more than one year where they evaluated the major PLM Vendors (Dassault Systemes / PTC / Siemens) on their Out-of-the-box capabilities related to 3D product documentation and manufacturing.

They concluded that none of the vendors were able to support the full Volvo Truck complexity in a OOTB matter. Also, it was a good awareness project for Volvo Trucks organization to understand that a common system for 3D geometry reduces the need for data transfers and manual data validation. Cross-functional iterations can start earlier, and more iterations can be performed. This will support a shortening of lead time and improve product quality. Personally, I believe this was a rather expensive approach to create awareness for such a conclusion, pushing PLM vendors in a competitive pre-sales position for so much detail.

Future Aerospace

Kenny Swope from Boeing talked us through the potential Boeing journey towards a Model-Based Enterprise. Boeing has always been challenging themselves and their partners to deliver environments close to what is possible. Look at the Boeing journey and you can see that already in 2005 they were aiming for an approach that most of current manufacturing enterprises cannot meet. And now they are planning their future state.

To approach the future state Boeing aims to align their business with a single architecture for all aspects of the company. Starting with collecting capabilities (over 400 in 6 levels) and defining value streams (strategic/operational) the next step is mapping the capabilities to the value streams.  Part of the process would be to look at the components of a value stream if they could be fulfilled by a service. In this way you design your business for a service-oriented architecture, still independent from any system constraints. As Kenny states the aerospace and defense industry has a long history and therefore slow to change as its culture is rooted in the organization. It will be interesting to learn from Kenny next hear how much (mandatory) progress towards a model-based enterprise has been achieved and which values have been confirmed.

Gearing up for day 2

Martin Eigner took us in high-speed mode through his vision and experience working in a bi-modular approach with Aras to support legacy environments and a modern federated layer to support the complexity of a digital enterprise where the system architecture is leading. I will share more details on these concepts in my next post as during day 2 of PDT Europe both Marc Halpern and me were talking related to this topic, and I will combine it in a more extended story.

The last formal presentation for day one was from Nigel Shaw from Eurostep Ltd where he took us through the journey of challenges for a model-based enterprise. As there will not be a single model that defines all, it will be clear various models and derived models will exist for a product/system.  Interesting was Nigel’s slide showing the multiple models disciplines can have from an airplane (1948). Similar to the famous “swing” cartoon, used to illustrate that every single view can be entirely different from the purpose of the product.

Next are these models consistent and still describing the same initial specified system. On top of that, even the usage of various modeling techniques and tools will lead to differences in the system. And the last challenge on top is managing the change over the system’s lifecycle. From here Nigel stepped into the need for digital threads to govern relations between the various views per discipline and lifecycle stage, not only for the physical and the virtual twin.  When comparing the needs of a model-based enterprise through its lifecycle, Nigel concluded that using PLCS as a framework provides an excellent fit to manage such complexity.

Finally, after a panel discussion, which was more a collection of opinions as the target was not necessary to align in such a short time, it was time for the PDT dinner always an excellent way to share thoughts and verify them with your peers.

Conclusion

Day 1 was over before you knew it without any moment of boredom and so I hope is also this post. Next week I will close reviewing the PDT conference with some more details about my favorite topics.