3DEXPERIENCE Forum 2021 is our flagship event, bringing together industry luminaries, innovators, and disruptive startups in diverse sectors such as manufacturing, infrastructure, life sciences, and the Workforce of the future. This year, after taking enough precautions and adhering to local protocols we took at option to go with in-person event and meet our customers at the Shangri-La Hotel, Bengaluru on Day 1 followed by a fully virtual Day 2 covering the industry specific sessions.
Experience is Relationship: A Revolutionary concept to empower Sustainable Innovation & Transformation
In wake of economic recovery from the unprecedented disruption, our ultimate purpose was to highlight the role technology played in accelerating recovery & building/reforming trustable, profitable, sustainable relationships. Hence, the theme of this year’s 3DEXPERIENCE forum was “Experience is Relationship”.
Our executive team inaugurated the event, with sessions detailing sustainable innovation, business resilience, transformation & relationships. Deepak NG, India Managing Director, Dassault Systèmes, set the tone for the event and discussed industry challenges in the age of experience, which was followed by an exclusive round table discussion featuring: Bernard Charles, Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Dassault Systèmes; Samson Khaou, EVP, Asia Pacific, Olivier Ribet, EVP, EMEAR and Erik Swedberg, EVP, Americas. Here, the theme ‘Experience is Relationship’ was uniquely defined as being enabled by technology and designed to promote business resilience & sustainability. “Experience is Relationship is a concept that we believe in 2021, will drive business back to performance & back to the future!” – said Bernard Charles, setting a positive, aspirational outlook for the year ahead.
Florence Verzelen, Executive Vice President, Industries, Marketing and Global Affairs, Dassault Systemes, shed light on the importance of transforming business models to achieve sustainability goals and the different ways 3DEXPERIENCE platform enables sustainable business transformation.
The plenary also featured sessions from industry visionaries and customers:
Dheeraj Hinduja, Chairman, Hinduja Group, highlighted the key trends in the automotive industry today and the role of technology in propagating sustainability initiatives and accelerating new product development. Vinnie Mehta, Director General, ACMA, discussed the current state of the automotive and auto-component industry and the changes the industry needs to bring with regards to newer designs or minimizing the usage of raw materials. He concluded the session by thanking Dassault Systemes for being a great partner to not only ACMA but the entire industry.
Next was a customer session by Jitendra J Jadhav, Director, National Aerospace Laboratory(NAL) & Abhay Pashelkar, Program Director – Civil Aviation Programs, NAL covering their perspectives on the power of 3DEXPERIENCE platform in enabling collaboration between stakeholders and greatly reducing aircraft design cycle times. Jitendra J Jadhav highlighted our partnership with NAL saying “The 3DEXPERIENCE platform-based ‘Passenger Experience’ solution has been deployed in designing the Cabin and Cockpit of the Saras Mk-2 program. Virtual twin-based insights offered by this solution helped us to configure the cabin for various use cases and scenarios”. Here is the complete press release
Sanjay Chakraborty, CIO, L&T Defense, shared keen insights into the integration of next-gen technologies & the role they play in enhancing the efficiency of the Indian Manufacturing ecosystem. Brigadier. S. Ramanathan, Deputy Director-General, Chief Engineer, Director General Naval Projects, Visakhapatnam, discussed how integrated project and budget management system powered by 3DEXPERIENCE platform is helping with intelligent outputs for naval infrastructure projects
Remi Dornier, Vice President, Construction Cities and Territories Industry, Dassault Systemes, and Prasad Pandit, Industry Process Leader, CATIA, CC&T, Dassault Systemes, showcased the success of Bouygues Construction & how the 3DEXPERIENCE platform drives collaborative construction experiences to streamline project organization across the value chain.
Lastly, to close the plenary sessions; Dr. Nitin Bhola, Co-founder, LUCID Implants showcased how LUCID Implants is driving positive patient centric outcomes with customizable implants for craniofacial surgery, thus redefining surgical practices. “As part of the 3DEXPERIENCE Lab, we were able to achieve in 3 years what would’ve taken us 7 or more years to achieve independently” shared Prashanth Ray, CEO, LUCID Implants.
At the end of Day 1 of the 3DEXPERIENCE Forum 2021, the attendees of the event could visit the 3DEXPERIENCE Playground that featured interactive demo zones for manufacturing, infrastructure, and life sciences sectors offering attendees the opportunity to deep-dive into the various technology levers in action.
On Day 2, we delved into industry-specific breakouts covering industry solution experiences and success stories
Breakout 1: Sustainable Manufacturing Growth
Kiran Divekar, DELMIA Sales Director, Dassault Systèmes kick started the breakout and crystallized the definition of Smart Manufacturing. He keenly highlighted the importance of centralising sustainability across all processes in the product development process across industries.
This was followed up by a captivating panel discussion featuring Deb MUKHERJEE, Managing Director, Omega Seiki Mobility, Pamela TIKKU, Chief Business Officer, ICAT-International Centre for Automotive Technology and Shree HARSHA, INDIA Marketing and Strategic Planning Director, Dassault Systèmes discussing the current state of EV production & the auto-component industry. Dr. Deb Mukherjee expressed “EV is a social movement that will occur over a period of time and provides and is an enabler for rural development and entrepreneurs alike to empower self-employment & change the landscape of environmental impact”.
The session progressed with another insightful panel discussion featuring A. Sivakumar, General Manager, Shipbuilding, Cochin Shipyard Limited; Nihal Kaul, Lead Central Sustainability, Hero MotoCorp; Dr. S Devarajan, Senior Vice President Engineering, TVS Motor Company who keenly discussed digital transformation in their respective companies and the importance of smart manufacturing methods in creating a competitive advantage especially in the product development process.
Next, representing Aeronautical Development Establishment; Akhilesh Jha, Group Head, ADE, said “In 2020, we leveraged Virtual Twin experiences whose virtual reality capabilities provided greater visibility, helped us successfully experiment with additive manufacturing. Virtualisation and 3D printing capabilities have helped us optimise our design, testing & virtual prototyping”.
Measuring the impact of emission regulations on product development seemed like a subjective undertaking. However, Dnyanesh Dandekar, Vice President – R & D, Sharda Motor Industries Limited, with an objectively digestible approach, highlighted the 3 governing bodies creating these regulations, how companies have adapted to meet them and how new sustainability benchmarks are being influenced and achieved through research and technology integration.
After Sustainable Manufacturing Growth, we explored another critical sector driving economic recovery in India: Infrastructure.
Breakout 2: Sustainable Transformation in Infrastructure
Amit Gupta, Strategic Senior Manager, Energy & Materials, Dassault Systèmes, set the stage for the Infrastructure track by establishing the importance of integrating technology & embracing sustainability in the infrastructure domain.Our esteemed speakers highlighted the need for adoption of Virtual Twin Experiences to optimize infrastructure development, starting with Jonathan Asher, CATIA R&D Roles Portfolio Director, Dassault Systèmes, as he stressed “The goal of Dassault Systèmes approach to construction is to facilitate the execution through the Virtual Twin Experiences that are knowledge centric, repeatable, integrated, comprehensive & include all actors on one database”. Prashanth Mysore, Strategic Business Development Director, DELMIA, Dassault Systèmes, then echoed “Digital transformation and more importantly Virtual Twin Experience is key to the sustainability of the metals & mining industry to achieve safety, predictability, productivity, profitability and create a workforce of the future through VR & AR”.
Rakesh KUMAR, Chief Design Officer, Godrej Construction was in agreement with the sentiment of employing next gen technologies, and AI as he discussed how solar farms are currently being developed using these technologies. Amit Jahagirdar, Head – Business Applications Digital Transformation at Thermax, highlighted the proficiency of our advanced tool suite “We interact with the 3D models created which enable collaboration with stakeholders from within & outside the organization allowing us to perform design reviews throughout the process by leveraging the PLM tool as part of the 3DEXPERIENCE platform”.
Infrastructure has proven to be the key driver for economic recovery, innovation, job creation & skills transformation in India as we emerge from the pandemic. We moved to discuss Startup success stories and the workforce of the future in our next session.
Breakout 3: Disruptive Innovation for Startups & Workforce of the Future
Frédéric Vacher, Head of Innovation, 3DEXPERIENCE Lab, Dassault Systèmes highlighted the virtualisation capabilities that Dassault Systemes provides across industries especially through the pandemic and shared, “With the COVID vaccine, our clients were able to accelerate testing & production to achieved higher productivity by leveraging the 3DEXPERIENCE platform on Cloud.”
The 3DEXPERIENCE Forum in the spirit of nurturing the entrepreneurial spirit; organized the 3DEXPERIENCE Pitch for startups. 5 startups competed and pitched to our panel of judges for the opportunity to be part of our 3DEXPERIENCE Lab and participate in the Business Accelerator Program. Three revolutionary ideas by Offgrid Energy Labs, Pacify Medical & Bio-Dimension were selected. Here are the winners of the 3DEXPERIENCE Pitch.
Deepak NG, Managing Director, Dassault Systemes, India and Dr. Chintan Vaishnav, Mission Director at Atal Innovation Mission, engaged in a powerful panel discussion on discovering and empowering entrepreneurial ventures in India that culminated in Dassault Systemes signing a Statement of Intent with NITI Aayog’s Flagship Initiative – Atal Innovation Mission (AIM).
The signing ceremony closely preceded, Valerie Ferret, Vice President, 3DEXPERIENCE Edu, Dassault Systèmes, who reiterated, “At Dassault Systemes we are committed to provide the skills demanded by the industry and to provide upskilling opportunities for everyone to enable a more sustainable future”. A sentiment that was echoed by the panel discussion featuring Dr. Bharatkumar Ahuja, Director, College of Engineering, Pune, Abhay Tarnekar, General Manager, KBE & DPD Systems, Tata Motors, Dr. Ramanan Ramanathan, Former (First) Mission Director Atal Innovation Mission & Additional Secretary at NITI Aayog and Subramanya Koodli, Business Consultant Director, Dassault Systèmes about creating a symbiotic entrepreneurial ecosystem for innovators through collaboration between academia, industry and government.
The 3DEXPERIENCE Edu fosters the right skills for future employability, by revealing jobs of the future, inspiring future generations and transforming education & research with a strong connection to industry.
Breakout 4: Roadmap for Indian SMEs to Move Up the Value Chain – 3DEXPERIENCE WORKS
Our final industry-specific breakout session prioritized customer success stories of those leveraging 3DEXPERIENCE Works. Rohit Chhabra, Director, 3DEXPERIENCE Works, Dassault Systèmes detailed “The 3DEXPERIENCE Works platform is applicable to departments across the organization with solutions catering to design/engineering, simulation, manufacturing, marketing/sales & governance.”
Customer success stories followed, starting with Aseem Gill, Director, Digi Drive, saying “SOLIDWORKS helps reduce time and cost due to reworks by 15% and assembly & machine time of parts by 10%”. Gurpreet Singh, Sr. Industry Consultant Manager-3DEXPERIENCE Works, Dassault Systèmes, then highlighted 4 key 3DEXPERIENCE Works customer success stories of Square Robot Inc, Infocus Energy Services, Vortex & the Center for Advanced Design based in different locations around the world. The session also featured Nitin Raut, Director Migma Packtron as he shared their digital transformation journey.
Throughout these exciting sessions on both days of the 3DEXPERIENCE Forum 2021, we conducted a variety of polls and surveys to gain important insight into the experiences of our visitors, get feedback and learn how we can continue building our flagship event in the years to come. Here is a quick glance at what our customers said.
We are greatly appreciative of our speakers and dignitaries for sharing their perspectives and we hope to have left our attendees inspired to innovate and motivated to continuously pursue sustainability.
To explore these insights in greater detail, stay tuned as we bring you these sessions from experts on demand.
