Experiences fueled by digitization
Whether remote health, smart cars, homes, cities, factories or plants: in many discreet industries, the patient, client or customer is being connected – digitally and permanently. The “things“ that people ingest, wear, or just ubiquitously use and feed with information, are becoming increasingly intelligent. This is primarily enabled by software running on the devices themselves which are then connected to servers and other devices. Most importantly, it is mostly the software and not the hardware that defines the actual customer experience, and that experience will make the product win or lose in the market.
Extreme innovation complexity
According to Jan Bosch, the amount of software in mission-critical systems within the Aerospace & Defense industry has increased by a factor of 10 every seven years. Growing from 10.000 lines of code to 100.000 is difficult enough – and even more so because the functions and behaviors that software engineers implement are not visible to their eyes – they “fly blind” for most of their work time. Coding environments have been developed to deliver WYSIWYG-type functionality to bridge that gap.
The other complication is team collaboration and IP reuse, which is being addressed by a fast growing IDE provider industry.
Global Competition
Top-level ski racers optimize dozens of parameters in their training and equipment with immense dedication and resources, to cross the finish line less than a blink of an eye faster than their competitors. That’s “high performance competition.” Digitization, combined with globalized markets, turns any competition into “high performance competition.” This is due to two pressures squeezing innovators from two sides at the same time. On the top-line, it’s the complexity pressures from serving global markets with different tastes and regulation. On the bottom-line, companies are exposed to margin pressures caused by globally optimized value chains in engineering, manufacturing and distribution. Above all, the new mantra is to create breakthrough innovation under time-to-market pressures, while market dynamics and value capture being in strong favor of the first to market. Unlike in sports, the silver medal can signify failure.
Software driven innovation for the IOT/IIOT
What can companies do to embrace the IOT and IIoT and continuously deliver competitive value?
1. Open the perimeter of innovation
In our rapidly changing, digitized world, innovators are looking for different, non-traditional methods to ideate and innovate effectively. They are looking for diverse, internal and external stakeholders to gather and validate ideas. A secure, digital platform can then connect this innovation ecosystem in a way they are used to from Facebook, LinkedIn, WeChat and others. Beyond formal processes, ideas have to be able to “free-flow,” and social functions are the grease to make them understood, shared, commented and augmented.
2. Master software driven innovation
Placing your customer in the center of innovation requires understanding the actual customer experience in all its dimensions. Beyond physical, functional and performance related aspects, this includes the emotional and social factors related to the product, facility or service in use. To understand such complex interrelations and behaviors (both product and user), it’s simply not possible anymore to use descriptions, tables, graphs and poor plastic prototypes. A life-like virtual model, which is fully functional, multi-scale (component to system to system-of-system), and multi-physical (kinetic, electronic, magnetic, light, thermic etc.) can give a close-to-reality perception of the customer experience. Those virtual models represent a step change in re-using intellectual property and accelerating innovation.
3. Leverage 3D and model based systems engineering
Software is the key to deliver delightful user experiences continuously. Software has also become the key driver of innovation and this is the case for many discreet industries. Companies delivering hybrid (hardware & software) based systems need to marry the best of two worlds: the rigorous quality processes for delivering reliable and mission critical systems on the one hand, and the agile methods unleashing innovative functions and usages and making them available instantly. One concept is “invisible governance,“ delivering traceability, transparency and collaboration across all engineering domains in non-disruptive ways.
Come to the 3DEXPERIENCE FORUM in Hollywood Florida next week to see a demonstration with surprising examples of new consumer electronic devices being created by an open community of engineers, and with the new generation methods and collaborative technologies fueled by 3DEXPERIENCE platform.
