Here’s an easy question. What’s the most amazing simulation tool ever invented and used every day by millions of people to make business-critical decisions? Still thinking? Let me give you a hint. You’re probably supposed to be using it right now instead of reading this blog. Yes, it’s that spreadsheet open on your computer screen. Maybe it’s a sales forecast or a projection of project costs you’re supposed to be managing. Maybe it’s data that will be input into a separate tool or an analysis of results from another tool. You may be editing it or reading it to understand the information. You may be about to share it with someone else in your company so they can comment or add to it.
What’s the most amazing simulation tool ever invented and used every day by millions of people to make business-critical decisions?
Spreadsheet models are so ubiquitous we’ve almost forgotten to think about them as models. But make no mistake, that’s exactly what they are. They are poked, prodded, dissected and debated by many stakeholders at all levels of most enterprises. All those people have a common goal: to gain insight into an issue and to make decisions based on that insight. Billions of dollars have been saved and billionaires have been made because of the spreadsheet, which we now take for granted as a basic unit of currency in global business communication.
All that activity around what is ultimately tables of numbers with various connections between them is, in some ways, a form of play or “Serious Play” to use the term coined by Michael Schrage in his 1999 book by the same title. The main point of the book is that the best companies in the world “simulate to innovate.” By “playing” with simulation models, companies gain insight and ideas that range from incremental improvements in products and processes to breakthroughs that can change markets. In this context, play means letting a group of people in different roles have access to simulation models (aka digital prototypes) and it is through that access, and the interaction around the models, where innovation happens. The behavior of the people interacting with the models is as important as the behavior of the models that drive innovation. The more an enterprise can have diverse groups concurrently explore and interact with simulation models based on up-to-date data throughout a development process, the more good that can happen. Conversely, if decisions are made sequentially in silos with subgroups (of experts) focusing only on their subset of requirements, the more stultified and less innovative the organization will become. Decisions are delayed and risks may seem minimized but then so are the innovative ideas.
Schrage encourages enterprises to become more prototype-driven and less specification-driven in their design and development activities. If you can ask and answer thousands of “what if” questions by experimenting with simulation models, you will learn quickly and make better decisions than if you wait until you validate each requirement in a sclerotic specification-driven process. This all sounds reasonable until we get to the issue of complexity. Exploring, let’s say, the tradeoffs between growth and profitability for a small company pales in comparison to the myriad of tradeoffs among the thousands of engineering requirements and parameters governing the design of, say, a car, a plane, or a complex industrial process. To really achieve the prototype-driven nirvana Schrage envisions for complex products and processes, we’re going to need more than a spreadsheet. We’re going to need a new “game”’ designed for sustainable innovation that can model complex systems.
At Dassault Systemes we believe the answer is the 3DEXPERIENCE platform. The 3DEXPERIENCE platform enables “players” to engage in and leverage the serious game of simulation powered innovation from product ideation all the way through to service and end of life. The players, all potential innovators, come from many, if not all operational groups within an organization: engineering, design, marketing, finance, etc. The platform allows them to constantly bring and share relevant information and apply their knowledge to various simulation models, and therefore drive innovation through a multitude of simulations and decision-making events.
Serious play is serious business when it comes to innovation. 3DEXPERIENCE is the platform for managing and enabling this play at the level of complexity needed for modern product development.
Science, engineering and technology have joined together in order to simulate a better world. Want to be a part of the digital revolution? Visit the SIMULIA Learning Community for all the latest updates and for the Science in the Age of Experience conference proceedings!
