This past month, Dassault Systèmes’ Vice President of the High Technology Industry Olivier Ribet participated in a webinar hosted by Parks Associates, discussing the Internet of Things (IoT) and “Smart Appliances in the Era of Experiences.” Olivier was joined by David Bingham of General Electric and Todd Rytting of Panasonic North America, and their unique experiences at two of the largest IT brands in the world provided fascinating insights on the next era of “the user experience.” The discussion focused on how data can help drive the high tech industry, and Olivier shared his experience at Dassault Systèmes and his vision for the development of “smart” appliances, including how a single platform for coordinating product design can help manufactures keep producing increasingly sophisticated products.
*A recording of the webinaris available on the Parks Associates website.*
Today’s high tech industry faces a big challenge: to use complicated technology to gather and analyze enormous amounts of data, but apply the learnings from the data in a way that simplifies the lives of consumers. Creating simplicity from complexity is always a tall order, but with connected devices, manufacturers don’t need as much guess-work about how their products are being used…their products will tell them. Specific examples of how a product is used and what difficulties users encounter are key insights for product developers, and these insights can now be collected in real-time to create fixes for potential problems before the occur, and to improve the design of future product versions. These are all key aspects to ensuring that a product or appliance is successful and relevant in the marketplace.
A direct example of this was mentioned during the webinar by General Electric (GE), which uses insights from their consumers to create better and more innovative products. FirstBuild, a partnership between GE and Local Motors, incorporates crowd-sourced consumer products, which helps to build and create concepts which are applicable and interesting to their target audience. Its Microfactory helps to test and create these ideas and allows them to work directly with a community of industrial designers, scientists, engineers, makers and early adopters. GE was able to build a design center which allows the consumer to come into the facility and work collaboratively to co-create new interfaces and ultimately build out GE’s client base.
But when dealing with live data from potentially millions of users…how can a manufacturer analyze that data, collaborate on ideas, and design meaningful solutions that reflect what users want?At Dassault Systèmes, we believe in the power of integrated design experiences to help manage the complex move from data to product performance. We council our clients that the best results come from using one integrated design experience that incorporates aspects like requirement management, product testing and simulation, collaborative design, component supplier management and final product assembly. The benefit of being connected to collaborative hardware, such as Dassault Systèmes’ 3DEXPERIENCE platform, is that developers are able to see all of these processes in one place and sort the findings in an organized and collaborative way.
To be a game-changer in the high tech industry, developers have to enable the creation of new smart connected objects through collaboration and unending innovation. During the innovation process, developers of connected devices gather information directly from the product. That data means nothing without the ability to move from a massive volume of unstructured data to structured project planning. Information intelligence, such as market intelligence, unstructured data, communities and influencers and manufacturing insights are evaluated and turned into structured collaboration. These projects are then structured by requirements, project teams, phases and deliverables, etc. At the end of the data, it’s all about optimizing the product line and portfolio.
An example of this is how innovative high tech companies are using Dassault Systèmes to turn complex findings into business profits. Dassault Systèmes’ Smarter, Faster, Lighter, industry solution experience is specifically created to help design teams coordinate their work on the “connected” products that shape the next generation of user experiences. From setting design goals, to ensuring each engineer is aware of their colleagues’ work, Smarter, Faster, Lighter provides a development environment with the ideal blend of structure and flexibility to fuel the collaborative development experience needed to build products for the Internet of Things. For more information about overcoming the complexity of creating smart connected products, read our “Mastering the Development of Smart Products” Tech Clarity whitepaper.
Ultimately, the goal is to continually improve the product and customer experience of the user, and connected devices can drive this goal…as long as businesses are prepared to manage the complexities of creating and supporting connected products. Companies that can mine product data to gain insights will ultimately lead the market – they already are!
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