Human at the Heart of Innovation
Published on : Saturday 10-10-2020
Insights from human-centric innovation at 3DEXPERIENCE Forum 2020.
The annual 3DEXPERIENCE Forum is a flagship event of Dassault Systèmes held every year across several countries. There is a large participation of luminaries and delegates from the user industries, innovators and disruptive startups in diverse sectors such as manufacturing, infrastructure, life sciences, and the workforce of the future. The India event, with ‘Experience is Human’ as the theme, was held on September 8th in virtual space due to Covid-19, as were the events in other countries.
In his opening remarks, Bernard Charles, Vice Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Dassault Systèmes, explained what it means to put ‘Human’ at the heart of innovation and how we approach this philosophy. “We learned a lot with the Covid crisis and we learned a lot about why we are doing what we are doing together,” he said, referring to the pandemic. “The only progress is human was the main idea that we initiated at the beginning of the year just before the crisis and I think it resonates today even more,” he added.
The event covered the following topics:
1. How can Life Sciences innovation play a key role for humans in times of crisis?
2. How Manufacturing startups and industry giants are gaining from 3DEXPERIENCE Platform?
3. Which strategies can help to prepare the Workforce of the Future for the new normal?
4. How can we empower the workforce in Infrastructure sector?
The plenary sessions featured eminent people from these fields relating to innovations facilitated by the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform. Speaking on business in the age of experience, Deepak NG, Managing Director, India, Dassault Systèmes, said “The way we operate has changed, and the adoption of technology will play a major role in helping our customers, our employees, and our partners – the entire ecosystem – to interact in a virtual world and continue the business.”
Later addressing the media, Florence Verzelen, Executive Vice President, Industry, Marketing, Global Affairs, Workforce of the Future, Dassault Systèmes referred to the crisis of the scale of Covid-19 and how the 3DEXPERIENCE platform has helped unlock incredible value. She talked about five things to be done in such a situation: Protect your employees; Maintain financial aids; Adopt sales and marketing; Clean and safeguard the supply chain; and help the ecosystem, and went on to elaborate on the solutions available from the 3DEXPERIENCE platform in each of these imperatives. Florence specifically mentioned how automation major ABB managed to create 3D assets, thanks to the 3DEXPERIENCE platform in order for their customer to experience their products in a better and easy way of seeing it. And thanks to that ABB has been able to increase their size, even during Covid, as example of the third imperative – adapt your sales and marketing. “Because I’m convinced it can be the catalyst and enabler of India’s recovery. India is much hit right now, but I'm confident it will be contained because there are signs of recovery. I'm talking to many customers in India, and some of them in automotive and mobile phone industries have already told us that they have started production and
unemployment has decreased presently by 8%. There is also a huge hope in the industry, academia and the government that India will be the producer of the Covid vaccine, not only for the country, but for the world,” she stressed.
Replying to a question on the automobile sector, Bernard Charles, said the tremendous pressure in the sector is not just due to the pandemic but also due to structural transformation across the world. “People are more concerned about sustainability, pollution, the CO2 emission challenge, which is clearly a major change. It’s creating an entire review of the product portfolio for each of the big players around the globe. With electric vehicle also growing and those techniques like hydrogen. I think even the IC engines are going to continue to be there. But we have improved techniques to reduce basically pollution,” he said. With the evolving scenario of electro mobility with vehicle simplification, Bernard Charles summarised the way he sees the future thus: “It (electromobility) is most probably going to be based on skateboards with different bodies to provide multi-passenger city transportation – last-mile delivery simplification and with advancement in battery technology. When you look at the average distance of each vehicle on smarter, connected vehicle to guide and increase safety. So, if you look at the current vehicles, they are rather complex and they can be simplified. So, the flexibility to use a common chassis, common power, electrical power platform for multiple vehicles is there and is there for long term.”
What potential does Dassault System see in the manufacturing sector in India, especially in view of companies looking at moving manufacturing away from China? How well-prepared is workforce in India to handle the expected surge in demand? Answering these questions, Bernard Charles, said: “We have seen an incredible dynamic in Indian universities to adopt the new digital way to create curricular competency centres to really train the new generation and make them agile with this kind of techniques to imagine new solution and then be able to produce them in a bigger way at a low cost. I was impressed last year when we had the India Forum to see the number of startups that were creating new solutions in sectors, which are, consider today as circulating. There is still a lot can be invented to simplify our life on simplified products. I think India is well positioned to play that card. With the evolution of degree education on innovation centres, we work with different government across India to really use the 3DEXPERIENCE platform to reveal the capacity. Don't try to do what other country has been doing, you can find the India way and I think it's time to do it.”
How additive manufacturing can be better leveraged to fill up the gaps in supply chain? “Additive manufacturing is a good way to compensate when your supply chain is not working anymore. And we've seen this happening with some of our customers during Covid if you have some parts that are missing then you can design it,” said Florence Verzelen. “But in order to do that, you need to design the product in the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. And one of the reasons why a 3DEXPERIENCE platform is super important is that it helps you become resilience. Because when you enter 3DEXPERIENCE design of your part, then when your supplier is locked down and cannot produce any more, then you can easily transfer the 3DEXPERIENCE twin of the part to the supplier or you can decide to print it using 3D printing. This is why two years ago, we decided at Dassault Systemes to launch a marketplace of 3D printers. So whenever we were on the road, if you need a fact, we can just use our marketplace and either produce your product there or just continue your production,” she concluded.
Link to watch the videos of the forum: https://bit.ly/33Vr7TW
