Siemens and Bentley have taken the next step in their alliance and announced a joint project that helps users create “digital twins” of their process in order to figure out how to improve it. The new project, announced on August 27th, will combine Siemens’ Teamcenter and Bentley’s Connected Data Environment and ProjectWise to create an end-to-end strategy for managing manufacturing processes with a digital twin.
As the latest stage of their “alliance,” Bentley and Siemens are working together to create a digital process management workflow.
In this case, the project will create a digital twin of both the manufacturing process and the physical plant the process is occurring in. The “twin” will be made in Teamcenter and can be shared among stakeholders with Bentley’s Connected Data Environment as part of what the companies referred to as a “consistent digital thread”. It’s meant as a way of managing all of the project data in one place, making it easier to understand how to reduce overhead and increase productivity.
“In going digital, the work of engineers and constructors is increasingly about the digital context and digital components around, and within, their infrastructure projects,” Greg Bentley, CEO of Bentley Systems, said. “As we industrialize project delivery, it is exciting for us to be working with Siemens to extend the reach of our CDE’s digital workflows beyond individual capital projects. With the Teamcenter PLM integration, the connections of project digital twins can now both expand into their enterprise context, and drill down into their manufactured components—advancing infrastructure through digital DNA!”
This is only the latest collaboration between the two companies, which have been in what they call a “strategic alliance” since 2016. In June, the two teamed up to create a Process Industries Academy, meant to help other organizations develop a better digital strategy across their asset lifecycles. Essentially, the Academy will focus on real examples of companies using digital product strategies to become more competitive and make higher revenues.
Alan Lamont, vice president of Digital Advancement Academies for Bentley Systems, called it, “an environment [for industry professionals] to learn and share practical insights about business process improvements enabled by technology, so they can educate and equip their teams to be more productive and achieve the best outcomes.” The Academy will start in November of this year.
There is no exact launch date for the alliance’s latest collaboration, but we do know it will be released in “early 2019.”