Industrial Automation Magazine India

3DEXPERIENCE Forum India 2023: Virtual Twins for Sustainable Economy

Published on : Tuesday 31-10-2023

The 17th edition of 3DEXPERIENCE Forum India was held at Bangalore on October 5, 2023.

Experience The Virtual Twin For A Sustainable Economy – that was the theme of the 17th edition of Dassault Systèmes,’ 3DEXPERIENCE Forum India – a much awaited mega event that returned to Bangalore after a year's gap, for the 2023 edition in early October. The last two editions at Bangalore (2021) and Gurugram (2022) were hybrid events with restricted physical participants, so this was the first full scale forum post Covid after 2019, and the enthusiasm on display among the participants – partners, customers and industry leaders – was infectious. The annual forum celebrates success stories of companies large and small, established industry giants as well as startups, and how they made use of technology to achieve astounding results, in the process shrinking development time, and cutting not corners but costs.
 
Extending a warm welcome to the delegates, Deepak NG, Managing Director – India, Dassault Systèmes, in his opening address referred to the many positives India is experiencing at the moment – an average growth rate of GDP at 5.5% from the past decade, and on course to meet the goal of being third largest economy in the world by 2028; the successful moon mission; the inspiring leadership of G20 with the focus on sustainability; and the biggest happening of that week, the sterling performance of Indian athletes at the Asian Games. Coming to the business at hand, Deepak drew attention to the three macro-economic sectors – Manufacturing, Infrastructure and Life Sciences – that are currently attracting large scale investments, boosted in no small measure by the PLI schemes and numerous startups scripting success stories of their own.

“We've been fortunate to work with all the industries across these three sectors and then contribute to the best of our capabilities, not only support to build their product solutions but also contribute to their sustainability. Dassault Systèmes is playing as a trusted partner aligned with the growth trajectory of the nation, reinforcing the values and vision of the country and the concerned organisations, and this forum is curated with those objectives,” said Deepak NG.
 
Bernard Charlès, the charismatic Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Dassault Systèmes, began his presentation with reference to sustainability and the need for creating a new world that will be more sustainable. The concept of the experience economy that the company introduced over 12 years ago in 2012 as ‘3DEXPERIENCE’ to simulate the consumer experience; how it has flowered into the virtual twin ecosystem; and how the focus is shifting from products and equipment to the actual usage of it. “Because when you observe the way of how products and services are used, it's very different from the initial intent or even the content of the product. So there is a notion of frugality that can emerge from observing the real world. The new simplicity of frugality on limited resources is creating really something new here. So we have to imagine a new world and create new things and measure the impact of what we take from Mother Earth and what we offer to consumers,” he explained. This is not something that is restricted to the manufacturing industry alone. An example from life sciences is the role of the Medidata Synthetic Control Arm and the efficiency it brings to clinical trials; or the Online 3D Space Planning with the ability to design and configure a living room or kitchen using 3D design solutions and how it is disrupting the market. “That's what we do – creating this new virtual universe where one can imagine, illustrate and create things that have never been done before. And I don't call this digitalisation. I call this virtualisation, because there is a big difference between the two. What we do is a new abstraction to represent the world on revealing the invisible, on creating knowledge on our part, then to make things different,” he added.

Speaking of India, Florence Verzelen, Executive VP, Industry, Marketing and Sustainability at Dassault Systèmes, began by saying that if there is a place on earth today where one can see industry transformation in motion, it is here in India. Expressing optimism despite the huge challenges the country is facing, she gave the example of how over the last 15 years, the carbon intensity of the Indian manufacturing industry has reduced significantly. A specific example Florence quoted was of Simple Energy and how its founder promoter Suhas Rajkumar used the Dassault Systèmes’ Electro Mobility Accelerator on Cloud Solution to develop an electric scooter in just a year from ground up, with 90% less prototyping issues and 33% less prototypes. “We can all learn from what is happening here in terms of industry and sustainability transformation in order to create the business of tomorrow. It is a huge opportunity because we all know that China plus One has to bring so many companies here in India.  But to make it happen and to make it happen fast, you need to write manufacturing content. So that's the first thing, which is a major shift, especially here in India,” she elaborated.
 
Dr N Saravanan, President and Chief Technical Officer, Ashok Leyland made an interesting presentation with specific reference to the transportation industry, which is right up there along with energy in terms of carbon footprint. The global transportation sector is a major polluter, producing more than seven billion metric tonnes of carbon dioxide (GtCO₂) a year.  Is there really a green vehicle, he asked and said every vehicle has a footprint. The question is how do you manage the carbon footprint?  How do you minimise the footprint of production? And how do you minimise the footprint in operations? “To me, it's basically a combination of three things – new alternate fuels, low carbon fuels – there could be hydrogen or e-fuels/e-diesel and so on, but I also believe there is a role for next generation IC engines. Not burning diesel necessarily, but burning hydrogen is a possibility. So it's a combination of all this that gives you these multiple combinations of possibilities,” Dr N Saravanan emphasised. Ashok Leyland is India's second largest commercial vehicle manufacturer and the fourth largest bus manufacturer in the world. The company uses Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform for modular vehicle design, validation, production, and configuration management. This helps the company accelerate new product development (NPD) to produce new vehicle variants much faster.

An interesting fireside chat was anchored by Praveen Mysore, Industry Consultant Director, Dassault Systèmes India, on the theme of Revolutionising Sourcing and Supply Chain with the power of Virtual Twin Technology. The distinguished experts’ panel comprised Ritesh Agarwal, Senior Vice President & Head of Sourcing – Auto Sector, Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd; Pankaj Chadha, Vice President – Defence, L&T Defence; and Dnyanesh Dandekar, Senior Vice President – R&D, Sharda Motors Industries Ltd. The massive disruption in supply chain induced by the Covid pandemic forced most companies to recalibrate their sourcing strategies and the panellists discussed the strategies followed by them. From eliminating tonnes of paperwork to, reducing time to market, the 3DEXPERIENCE on the Cloud provides organisations an ideal platform to match their strategic sourcing needs with the necessary tools for creation of an intelligent supply chain, from streamlining their part standardisation to connecting design engineers with industrial service providers.
 
The Start Up Pitch, ‘From Ideas to Impact: Startups Driving Innovation in India’ had innovative ideas from three shortlisted startups, competing for the opportunity to present their project at the Global 3DEXPERIENCE Lab Community event in Paris. The projects were:
i. Nanomaterial-based biosensors for Vitamin D3 test presented by Dr Partima Solanki, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, 3Knano Pvt Ltd.
 
ii. The P-Flow Fix – a home based, disposable and portable test kit presented by Dr Ashish Rawandale Patil, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, P-Flow Pvt Ltd.
 
iii. Energy storage and conversion systems based on hydrogen presented by Yash Tambi, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Ares Systems Pvt Ltd.
 
Each of these startups presented solutions that are innovative with significant cost advantages over existing methods or technologies and hence with huge potential for commercial applications. The startups were supported by the 3DEXPERIENCE Lab, an open innovation laboratory to accelerate disruptive innovation strongly impacting the society promoted by Dassault Systèmes with the motto, ‘We are all entrepreneurs’. The 3DEXPERIENCE Lab shapes a new framework of open innovation that merges collective intelligence with a cross-collaborative approach to foster entrepreneurship and bring new experiences to life, as well as to strengthen society´s future of creation.
 
The pitch made by each company presented a difficult choice for the jury comprising Bernard Charlès and Florence Verzelen, and they took the easy way out of the difficult dilemma by choosing all three for the Paris event, much to the delight of the participating startups!
 
Shree Harsha, Global Business Services Industry, Business Strategy Director – Supply Chain & Logistics, Dassault Systèmes India, launched the India Hackathon, ‘Sustainable Logistics – Virtual Twin of Operations’, led 3DEXPERIENCE Lab. One of the biggest bottlenecks of the Indian manufacturing ecosystem is logistics costs, which today stand at about 14-16 per cent of the GDP, according to government estimates. While this is more or less the global average, in most efficient countries, it works to just about 8%, while in least efficient countries it is as high as 25%. The Indian government now plans to reduce it to 9% over the next 3 years as part of the Infrastructure Revolution with project Gati Shakti – the National Master Plan for Multi Nodal Connectivity to various Economic Zones. Gati Shakti is driven by 7 engines, viz., Railways, Roads, Ports, Waterways, Airports, Mass Transportation and Logistics Infrastructure. The idea is to leverage the Logistics Virtual Twin to operate the real end-to-end supply chain with all the stakeholders including the first and last mile providers by connecting the dots between the real and virtual worlds. The objective of the hackathon is to drive innovative solutions using the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. The 4 stage process kicked off on October 5 will culminate in early 2024 with 5 teams shortlisted for final pitch. The process will be coordinated by the DS SwYm Community (SwYm stands for Say What You Mean).

As in the past editions, the 3DEXPERIENCE Forum is incomplete without the Playground that showcases innovative applications featuring partners and customers, with experts attending to queries and doubts. The 3DEXPERIENCE Playground is where the real action is with actual applications and use cases that demonstrate the efficacy of the Dassault Systèmes product portfolio.