The GPDIS forum is historically rooted in the aerospace and defense industry, discussing return on experience from PLM and model-based systems engineering (MBSE) across a wide array of data management practices. This year’s conference was no exception, with a very similar OEM representation to previous years: from Airbus to Boeing, Moog and Northrop Grumman, complemented by other industrial manufacturers such as Edwards Life Science, Kubotek and more.
In addition, numerous software vendor presentations were provided by Ansys, Aras, Capvidia, Dassault Systèmes, Elysium, Nlign Analytics, PTC, Siemens, Sodius and more. This included contributions from consulting system integrators and analyst firms.
The 2022 event agenda was structured in four tracks:
- MBSE and Analysis
- Digital Twin and Digital Thread
- Emergent Technologies and Industry Transformation
- Model-based Definition (MBD)
In this post, I discuss the key perspectives presented during this year’s event, mostly based on the 2022 presentation materials accessible from the GPDIS website and YouTube Channel.
If you missed it, the key messages from the conference can be summarized as follows: beyond the promise that simplified SaaS and data continuity are essential value commodities, it is important to link sustainability and data resilience more explicitly in context of ways of working and business models. This includes linking hardware, software and model in the loop (HIL-SIL-MIL) to drive cross-functional collaboration and feedback loops. It also implies a tight connection between software engineering, simulation and MBSE; a step towards more resilient integrated data, fostering the opportunity to embed and continuously drive sustainability analytics.
I might be oversimplifying with the above, though everyone would agree that sustainability is good for business in aligning profit-people-planet objectives. Data resilience is an essential component for leadership to drive change holistically and continuously link it to big picture objectives. Sustainability refers to evidence-based (i.e., data-driven) lasting benefits.
One of the keynote speakers was Mike Witt, VP and Chief Sustainability Officer at Northrop Grumman, highlighting the need for end-to-end sustainable product development.
“Here at Northrop Grumman, we are innovators dedicated to a mission to define possible. We design solutions to address some of the biggest challenges facing our society and we remain committed to delivering those solutions sustainably for the benefit of everyone. Our new Net Zero GHG emissions goal is a reflection of our Values, and it is the next big step we are taking to do our part to build a brighter and more secure future.”—Mike Witt, Chief Sustainability Officer (as cited in Northrop Grumman 2021 Sustainability Report.)
Interestingly, in CIMdata’s announcement of the event, Annalise Suzuki, VP of Technology & Engagement at Elysium, explicitly defined "data resilience for sustainability" as “a way to ensure that we are sustainable from the digital data we harness. Not only do we need to get control of our data by identifying what we have, but we need to understand the power behind it to really maximize advantages within the transformation journey.” In other words, this relates to understanding the value of data, which has been pretty much the mantra for all business transformation and analytics initiatives in the past two to three decades.
In addition, Kenney Crooks, NG Fellow for reliability and model-based sustainment at Northrop Grumman, linked sustainability and sustainment by promoting a “shift left model-based sustainment” (sustained usage) towards a centralized “data-integration-as-a-service” backbone to connect authoring and consuming data sources, while focusing on distributed analysis and result management. This approach is built on the idea that the power of analytics (as evidence) can be put in the hands of the end-users, though there is always the need to effectively mitigate the risk of unknown workflow design constraints to maintain sustainable digital threads.
Furthermore, Paul Kaiser, PLM Program Director at Moog, put sustainability, adaptability, agility and scalability in context of continuous improvement and the need to improve the organization at a sustainable pace. Kaiser expanded on “building a vision for the solution and the improved organization,” while promoting the SAFe Agile framework from Scaled Agile as a mean to that end.
Finally, Cristina Martinez, Sr. Manager Business Solutions, Advanced Engineering Services at Edwards Lifesciences, presented a very comprehensive summary of the value that MBD can bring to help transforming organizations themselves from document- to product-centric OEMs. As she rightly put it, “in the future, we will create 3D models to produce products (not to produce drawings).” Hence, the need to define the relevant foundations first with a part- and BOM-centric PLM environment to drive trusted data consistency and integrity.
What are your thoughts?