Back in September, I announced that I'd be presenting at the NAFEMs 2012 North American conference in Washington DC. 

Lifecycle Insights | 'Making Simulation Business Relevant' Presentation at NAFEMs North American ConferenceEngineering simulation has been one of my passionate followings for some time. I think it cuts more to an engineer's responsibility for a...

I had talked with Michelle Ringrose of NAFEMs on what they needed, and the answer was measuring the value of simulation. That fit in pretty well with some research I had been planning on conducting on the 'Value of Simulation.'

I had fun presenting those findings and I believe it was well received, but I heading into the conference, I was really curious to see what topic dominated discussions. And I was a little surprised at what I found. 

SPDM as the Topic of the Day

Let me start by saying this: there were a LOT of presentations on SPDM, or SLM or SDM or whichever three-letter-acronym you'd like to use. Maybe that isn't so surprising given that kind of system represents one innovative forefront in the CAE space. But I was a little surprised to see both the maturity as well as the commitment many major organizations have made towards this kind of technology. So enough with the generalizations, let me get more specific.

Frank Popielas Talks about SPDM at Dana Corporation

Instead of me trying to recap things, let me show two of the most interesting slides that Frank from Dana showed. First, we got this slide that shows their current state of CAE within Dana. I think many organizations resemble what is shown here.

Current state of CAE at Dana #NAFEMs12chadkjackson

Not too surprising. But here's what shocked me. Take a look at this slide.

"We're already past being a full service supplier" Frank Popielas from Dana at #NAFEMs12chadkjackson

Frank's executives at Dana have bought into this vision. They see CAE as a capability that will differentiate Dana as a supplier from their competitors. They see SLM (or SPDM) as a means to collaborate with their customers more closely around the performance of the parts and systems they will be delivering. Given the context that the products that Dana produces are highly engineered, I can see where these tools provide some strategic value. But take this with a grain of salt, this isn't implemented as of yet. But it's a way to position the engineering organization, and the simulation capability it provides, as a strategic competitive tool.
From a more technical perspective, they have a maturity model for SPDM and they have a model on how SPDM and PLM work together. All in all, it was pretty well thought through.

Dana's model for SDM maturity. #NAFEMs12chadkjackson

Dana's vision of how PLM and SLM work together. #NAFEMs12chadkjackson

Brian Seitzman Tells the SPDM Story at Caterpillar

The next engaging presentation that I saw was from Caterpillar. Take a look at this slide.

Caterpillar's vision for simulation #NAFEMs12chadkjackson

What Brian is laying out here is a set of competencies they think is required to move up the maturity chain in terms of simulation. I couldn't help but think that this is in the same vein as a post I published, except this more mature and developed.

The Very Real Skillset Challenges to Simulation Driven Design > ENGINEERING.comIt feels like we've been talking about simulation driven design for a really really long time. Doesn't it? The whole idea is to setup and...

The interesting part of this story is how Brian saw SLM technologies enabling the higher ends of this maturity model, specifically design exploration. As we've heard before, SPDM really has two parts to it: data management and simulation automation. 

Audi Talks to Simulation Automation

Of all the stories that I heard during the NAFEMs event about simulation automation, I think that Audi takes the cake. They talked about automating hundreds if not thousands of simulations. The slide below shows how this very much is a configuration management problem, both in terms of managing it as well as automating it.

Audi talking about using SPDM for simulation automation, not just data management #NAFEMs12chadkjackson

Embraer Takes Us on Their SPDM Journey

One of the most intriguing stories for me, however, was that of Embraer's. They talked through their entire journey of SPDM, from kicking off their initiative to their current state. Interestingly, when they got to the point of moving forward with SPDM technology, they seriously considered developing some in-house software. Nope, that wasn't a typo. 

Ebraer seriously considered an in-house SDM solution. #NAFEMs12chadkjackson

I cringe whenever I hear an engineering organization considering this course. There's just too much complexity and differences in terms of application development compared to embedded software development. But that's another post.
Another point in this presentation that I found valuable was the clear identification of the different artifacts in the simulation structure and recognition that they need to be managed separately. My apologies for the blurriness.

Simulation data structure used by Ebraer through MSC's SimManager. #NAFEMs12chadkjackson

My Takeaways

First off, I saw a lot of organizations at the phase where they are getting their simulation data under control. Although I didn't have a chance to dig in, I still have a tough time seeing how the configuration management of simulation data can be separated from the configuration management of CAD data, as I have written before.

Can SDM Be Effective without CAD PDM? > ENGINEERING.comA little while ago, I started writing a good bit more about simulation topics. In particular, I've been looking closely at Simulation Lif...

Second, while I believe there is a lot of value there, I didn't see a lot of organizations that have matured to the simulation automation stage as of yet. I think it takes a lot to get there. And I think folks like Brian Seitzman from Caterpillar have it right: you need some competencies to ensure accuracy to drive the right decision making.

Don't get me wrong though. I see a lot of value in SPDM. In fact, I now mourn the fact of how much time and effort has gone into manually managing these sort of artifacts in the past. I see these capabilities as a real boon to engineering organizations.

Summary and Questions

OK. Let's recap.
- There were a good number of SPDM related presentations at the NAFEMs 2012 North American event, including Dana, Caterpillar, Audi and Embraer.- Dana painted SPDM as an enabler to a Full Service Supplier strategy, which is reasonable given the highly engineered nature of their product.- Caterpillar laid out a set of competencies needed to take full advantage of SPDM for simulation automation.- Audi has an impressive story on simulation automation. They also recognize the inherently complex configuration management problem that comes with simulating many product variants.- Embraer is an interesting story to track because it ranges from kicking off the initiative to their current state.

Alright, that's my take. Now I have some questions for you. For those of you active with simulations, how do you manage the configurations across both CAD and CAE today? Spreadsheets? Documents? Not at all? Interested to get your perspective.

Take care. Talk soon. And thanks for reading.