Hey guys!

Happy St Patrick’s Day!! Hope you celebrate it and have fun! I thought that since people are supposed to wear green clothes, this blog would also turn green! So at least for today I’ll blog about green innovation and what are the applications of 3D to help the planet and its people…

I came across a video that introduces a not-so-crazy concept to deliver green energy in a massive amount and fairly logical way. Scott Brusaw, the guy behind this, came up with the idea that roads were environmentally inneficient and that they should pay for themselves. Now that is out of the box right?

He thinks that roads could be improved to sort of glass ones, with solar panels inside to absorb the sun’s energy. And since they lead to our cities, houses, cinemas, gig venues, etc. they would then provide the amount of energy needed, thus paying back what they initially cost. This would turn into some kind of grid providing energy.

There are obviously numerous issues to overcome beforehand like the strength of the glass surface or the transparency – will sun beams go through the surface? Will they reflect into drivers’ eyes? Etc.

But let’s not spoil the fun, here is the video!

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tell me what you think guys! It’s pretty amazing and I am sure there is a way to help this project with 3D and lifelike PLM… would it be feasible? Is it one of these ideas that just can’t work? I’m personally sure it can work, it feels logical to me… tell me what you think!

Thanks for reading!

Rémi

What sounds like the appraisal for a world-saving superhero turns out to be the promise of a super modern material used to build products which are targeted to withstand ultimate conditions – called composites.

Most of us have been in touch with fiberglass materials for hobby purposes or for touching up minor damages on the car. This technique has been around for almost a century and used for sculpturing free-form structures up to the size of a sailing boat.

Well, this type of layered mix of solid fibers and first liquid then solidifying resin today has well advanced to become a compound which overtakes metal in terms of material properties, i.e. durability, toughness, while maintaining a significant lower weight per volume.

Typical tensile strengths of some materials (from Wikipedia)

No question that the combination of strong and light can offer major advantages for anything that is moving, such as transportation vehicles. “Less weight = less energy consumption = less carbon footprint” is a formula which counts if we want to advance an environmentally conscious approach. No wonder why the new generation of passenger aircraft from Boeing and Airbus are designed using 50% of composites materials for their structural parts!

Although those aerospace examples are the most prominently visible, the use of composites is spreading out to many other industries, including sports & leisure (e.g. bikes, golf clubs), energy (e.g. wind turbines) and architecture (pre-fab construction panels).

This recent newsflash talks about German car manufacturers’ hot trend for carbon materials to comply with EU regulations regarding weight and CO2 targets. Such light “Mega City Vehicles” built with composite materials and E-drive (heavy batteries) could define a new vehicle type from 2013 already.

With the widespread use of composites the production processes need to abandon the purely manual stage, to become digitally controlled – engineered to manage the complex fiber lay-up and resin application process, and to run it efficiently on an industrial scale. Transforming the composites industry from what has been called “Black Art” to an industrial discipline is the objective of the partnership between National Institute for Aviation Research at Wichita State University in Kansas USA and Dassault Systèmes.

Manufacturers that target composite technologies to give them the competitive edge for their products are confronted with the challenge to build the competencies to master equipment and methods, required to successfully control a composite design and production process.

Dassault Systèmes has taken a leadership role in composites with an integrated PLM solution that encompasses design, simulation and digital manufacturing solutions, and that helps manufacturers to master the challenge to control and run composites production end-to-end (read more). The 3DS solution is now running on the unique V6 platform, thus adding live collaboration and experience features to support global teams working together. Have a look at the interview to hear what my colleagues Philippe Savignard and Laurent Delsart have to say about the composites industry status quo and future potential.

Check out the videos to learn more about the 3DS PLM composites solution.

Click here to view the embedded video.

But that is not all. For the evolution of the composites PLM solution and related know-how the 3DS team relies on a truly vivid collaboration with customers, research facilities, industry consortia and a network of selected solution partners. Already five partners have signed in to develop their applications on the V6 platform and thus complete and extend functionalities of the global PLM V6 composite solution: Simulayt Limited, Magestic Systems Inc., Coriolis Composites SAS, Cincinnati Machine LLC. and Ingersoll Machine Tools Inc.

Find out more on the Dassault Systèmes partnerships and description of these solution partners on our website.

Soon more from the wonderful world of engineering.

Best,
Michael

Register here!

Calling all electric car freaks, online community nutters, 3D wackos, product design gurus . . . what have I missed?

We’re organising an event that you’ve all been waiting for! It’s all about sharing ideas on how to develop an electric car online via communities from all over the world.  And it’s happening November 22.

We’ll also be announcing an online project that’s going to happen in collaboration with 40 Fires using our new suite of online products (CATIA V6 Online & 3DSwYm).

We’ve got a fantastic line up of speakers, for example:

• Paul Lomangino from Tesla Motors
• Hugo Spowers from Riversimple/40 Fires;
• Dr Shimizu from SIM Drive;
• Jay Rogers from Local Motors;
• Richard Bruges from Unipart (suppliers looking for a common platform to develop EV components);
• AKKA Technologies;

So what are you waiting for, register today (free) for our Community Based e-Car Development conference at www.3ds.com/CBeCD

The ECF is the 23rd and 24th November, why not go to both?

Yours sustainably,

Jonathan

P.S. For more about this sort of thing, check out my previous posts:

• Open Innovation, Empowerment and Exploitation
• Car development is child’s play!
• Riversimple Urban Car: Simply a Revolution!

Issues surrounding the Oil & Gas sector like climate change concerns, high prices and geopolitical uncertainties have forced many countries to seriously focus on alternate sources of energy.

One of the trends in the Energy industry is renewable energy sources—such as solar, wind, and hydro–as their engine of growth.

Already the United States, India, and several European countries have set goals to produce a substantial amount of their electricity using wind energy, making this a truly global phenomenon. For example, the European Union has set their sights on producing 20 percent of their electricity with wind power by 2020.

With this tremendous growth in wind energy, turbine manufacturers have to plan for exponential growth in their throughput. They have to update their manufacturing processes and production facilities to achieve their desired throughput. They have to move toward more automated production facilities and use new technologies like composites and resin transfer molding.

Since this industry is fairly new, it is in an enviable position to adopt cutting edge technologies, without having the weight of legacy data and processes to slow them down.

Wind turbines are the most expensive component of a windmill – costing as much as 75 percent of the total windmill cost.

It is imperative that these components be produced in the most cost-effective manner possible while maintaining the high quality and demand requirements.

By building the product right the first time in a virtual environment, manufacturers can take the guesswork out of validating their latest product design, manufacturing process and production facility—thereby reducing these costs.

Working in a virtual environment, eliminating the need for physical prototypes, scrap and wastage can be completely eliminated. DELMIA provides for a sustainable manufacturing environment minimizing the impact on the environment, making the world a greener place in more ways than one.

Working together I think we can indeed achieve 20% wind power by 2020, don’t you?

Best,

Karun

P.S. There’s more info on energy in general you mind find useful here:

www.plmv5.com/delmiaenergy

I remember Kermit the Frog once sang “it’s not easy being green.” I think a lot of designers would agree. Many would like to be more environmentally conscious, but they’re still under pressure to reduce the cost of materials and speed up design times. The bottom line usually wins over being eco-friendly.

At SolidWorks World 2009, we announced a new product we’ve been working on that was going by the code name “Sage.” It’s a tool that integrates seamlessly into SolidWorks that allows designers to see just how eco-friendly the products they’re designing are.

We’re happy to announce that this new product, officially named SolidWorks Sustainability, is now available in beta form from the SolidWorks Labs website. This is the SustainabilityXpress version that will be included with every version of SolidWorks starting with the release of SolidWorks 2010. SolidWorks Sustainability was designed in collaboration with PE International, and leverages their GaBi database

SolidWorks Sustainability allows the designer to submit data about materials, place of manufacture, and a few other variables to set a baseline for environmental impact. You can then change the materials, country, and so on to see how it changes the impact. Specifically, Sustainability measures:

• Carbon footprint
• Total energy consumed during manufacture
• Effect on air quality, specifically regarding acid rain
• Effect on water quality, specifically regarding algae blooms in coastal waters

The data updates automatically as you change your designs. The “Find Similar” tool even lets you search the built-in material database for close alternatives to the material you have specified, so you don’t have to waste time scrolling through menus. Even if you’re not interested in sustainable design, this could come in handy. And when you’re done, the system generates a report that you can print out, or send to colleagues.

If you’re interested in learning more, visit the SolidWorks Labs site to download the beta version. And finally, here’s a quick video I shot with SolidWorks’ Director of Product Innovation Rick Chin, showing off the program. Enjoy!

It’s been a while since I’ve posted anything on PLM as an Enterprise Backbone. With the global economy the way it is, it is a good time to be alive, economically speaking. This blog post covers the third pillar of the PLM enterprise backbone: sustainable development and regulatory compliance.

The core product and design data managed in PLM is crucial for today’s businesses to manage for their environmental impacts as well as their ability to comply with regulations.

Eco-Design / Sustainability and Regulatory Compliance require integration of the design and development systems with the extended enterprise to manage product impact across engineering, supply chains, manufacturing, distribution, after-market service and maintenance, as well as end-of-life processes (disposal, energy conversion and / or recycling).

Suppliers and engineering can be incorporated into the material compliance evaluation process to ensure the component library contains the most current material compositions and compliance certifications for supplied parts, such as RoHS (Restriction of the use of certain Hazardous Substances) and WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) in electrical and electronic equipment, IMDS (International Material Data Systems) reporting and ELV (End-of-Life Vehicle) in automotive, and REACH (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals), across many discreet and process manufacturing industries.

Working from a PLM basis, companies can explicitly manage their environment posture, from straight compliance-based, to systematic management, all the way to being full pioneers on the leading edge of industry.

PLM enables companies to implement Design for Compliance functions as an integral part of product development. With PLM solutions, product development teams can check material content information from any design early on and throughout the product development cycle. Reports can be generated to compare the compliance of manufacturing equivalents, list recyclable content, or evaluate best and worst manufacturing locations. This information can be cross-referenced against multiple regulations in all geographies, allowing designers to make changes sooner rather than later.

In medical device markets regulatory compliance also needs to be validated to U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requirements throughout the product introduction process. These regulations cover Corrective and Preventive Actions (CAPAs), Nonconformance Reports (NCRs), Product Complaints, Design Control Deliverables, Design History Files, and Quality Audits. Enterprise-wide change control needs to be in place to manage modifications to all documents, specifications, procedures and product configurations to minimize the risk of FDA audit driven plant shut-downs.

From a regulatory compliance standpoint, PLM needs to be managed as a mission-critical enterprise system.

Product companies can avoid late-stage design changes and explore ways of improving product designs while still meeting compliance requirements. Companies can also reduce or eliminate the use of hazardous materials and substances in their products, thereby avoiding problems such as launch delays, recalls, fines, poor customer satisfaction and a damaged public image.

In addition to regulatory compliance, PLM systems are critical to a company’s overall environmental performance. More than 80% of the ecological impact of a product across manufacturing, usage, maintenance and repair, and end-of-life disposal is determined during initial product design.

Upcoming regulations may even impact the energy efficiency of an entire value-chain, as well as its carbon footprint. This will require companies to manage a portfolio of eco-design initiatives for a product’s material, energy and carbon impacts, necessitating lifecycle analysis and product management through design, sourcing, manufacturing, distribution, and end-of-life processes.

Figures 1 and 2, below, depict a large complex enterprise framework for managing a portfolio of project for sustainable development. Other PLM backbone capabilities come to play including Project and Portfolio Management, Direct Material Sourcing, and Extended Enterprise Collaboration capabilities.

Figure 1: Corporate Level Integrated Environmental Management

Figure 2: Lifecycle Analysis (LCA) across a cradle-to-cradle mapping of the industrial ecosystem

Just a blog article doesn’t really give the space to treat this topic in-depth, but Dassault Systemes is making major investments and initiatives in solutions for Sustainable Development. Those wishing to read further on our company’s approach can review our new corporate report.

The last pillar of PLM as an enterprise backbone will complete the innovation spiral enabled by PLM in a discussion of Integrated New Product Market Launch, as facilitated by PLM.

More later about the fourth pillar of PLM as your enterprise backbone . . .

Best,

Brian

Related posts:

PLM as the Enterprise Backbone: Emerging with Advantage

PLM Enterprise Backbone Pillar 1: Product Portfolio Management

PLM Enterprise Backbone Pillar 2: Working with the Supply Chain

Well would you?

If it were more expensive to buy than your current car whilst having less power and were less capable of driving long distances, I’m not sure I would.

Producing the eco car that you the customer wants at a competitive price is probably the biggest challenge facing the automotive industry today and for the foreseeable future. But first of all what is the eco car?

The obvious one is a car that pumps out less tailpipe emissions (PM, HC, NOx, CO, CO²) whilst burning less fossil fuels. The auto manufacturers have lots of technologies available today to do this (see my previous blog post), such as: making the car lighter, efficient engine ancillaries (climate control compressor, alternator, electric water & oil pumps, etc.), energy recovery from braking, engine downsizing, electro-magnetic valve actuation, variable compression ratio, etc. The fuel efficiency gain can be from 20% up to 40% – all using today’s technologies based on the good old internal combustion engine.

The not so obvious ones are a car that can be fully & easily dismantled at the end of its life for 100% recycling, or a car made of materials that are fully compliant to health and safety regulations, or a car that needs less energy and creates less pollutants to manufacture, calculation of the car’s carbon footprint, to name but a few…

In other words “a car that can meet your mobility needs while preserving the environment now and for the indefinite future,” wow that’s hot stuff!

How can Dassault Systèmes help the Automotive Industry in these challenging times?

Let’s look at an example and see what we’ve got…

Today, minimising fuel consumption and emissions is heavily dependent on correctly controlling the engine, i.e. managing the energy consumed versus the energy needed to move the car and drive the ancillaries. The tens of thousands lines of control code in the engine’s ECU are today created by a long development process (6 engine calibration engineers are needed for 1 design engineer!) where cars have to be taken to extreme climates to verify that they start, accelerate, control emission correctly…basically reproducing as many real life conditions as possible.

But what about simulating these conditions and modelling the behaviour of the mechanical and electrical systems in the car (e.g. thermal & mechanical inertia) in your offices, allowing the vast majority of the code to be created without going to Alaska?

Well, this is exactly what we’re starting to show with CATIA Systems at one of our preferred Automotive customers…imagine the time and effort saved to get your product to the market and the quality gained by being able to re-use the behaviour models from one system to another!

Stay tuned for more examples…

What do you think is important for the Automotive Industry to build the eco car of the future?

Thanks, Jonathan

Wouldn’t you like to see how your new product – long before it has been produced – looks like in a real-life ambiance?

As an architect you’d be able to expose your fabulous apartment building in 3D to natural light conditions – thus demonstrating how the evening sun would illuminate the veranda and rays would beam through the windows of the living room. As a mobile device manufacturer, you could virtually look at your product at night and test the visibility of your backlit control panel. As a civil engineer you could test and optimize the ideal orientation of solar panels mounted on the roof of the supermarket which is now equipped with solar energy.

Optis, a software company with headquarters in the south of France, subsidiaries in Japan, the US and Germany, does exactly this! Optis has pioneered their methods for scientific light simulation and human vision since 1989 to help their customers optimize their design processes. Have a look at the video clip below to see how this works:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The benefits of this approach go beyond aesthetic optimization of product design. It has a very powerful “green” dimension with respect to minimizing energy consumption (remember physics class: light = energy). Here are some examples of how this can be used:

• Optimizing energy efficiency of lighting systems
• Optimizing material usage in products while even improving light performance
• Facilitating the design of most efficient solar sensors

Last week Optis was invited with Dassault Systèmes to join the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit 2009 where the world leaders of “green thinking” met and discussed ideas and concepts to answer the ecological challenges that the world faces. Virtual design in 3D with enabled light simulation may be just one contribution to succeed towards reaching the goal of sustainable and environmental conscious development of products, material usage and energy consumption.

Dassault Systèmes has a long standing relationship with Optis, who joined our Software Community Partner program in 2002. This partner program hosts over 165 leading companies to develop their applications integrated with Dassault Systèmes portfolio across our brands CATIA, SIMULIA, ENOVIA, DELMIA and 3DVIA. In addition Optis is also a partner in the SolidWorks community.

Our partners offer around 500 software solutions “on top” of DS’ offering in specialized industry applications. Our joint customers can tap into this vast source to find the right solution to solve their industry challenges in design, simulation, and manufacturing or for experiencing their product in a virtual world.

Hey, it’s nice to be part of this blog team and to have the opportunity to chat about what our solution partners bring to the party.

@++
Michael

P.S. Sometimes I think that our Software Partner program is one of the best kept secrets at DS … and it’s my mission to change that ! Many more examples of interesting solutions can be cited. Please let me know what types of application domains interests you the most and I’ll try to blog about them.

We’re nearing the end of the “What is Green PLM” series, so it’s only appropriate that we talk about a later stage in PLM, packaging. You can argue that packaging should be considered, designed and planned for as part of the PLM process.

The Inside

There are so many ways to gage product sustainability and therefore numerous potential criteria to chose from for creating ecolabels on packaging. Yet this is a largely underdeveloped practice. For now.

Companies know that consumers tend to make emotional purchasing decisions, and sustainability is growing as a purchase trigger. People feel good making ethical purchase decisions. This coupled with the burgeoning environmental and sustainability compliance regulations make for a given: more and more companies will start to incorporate ecolabeling to their packaging so that consumers can easily identify and purchase sustainable products.

One of the ecolabel debates is should we, and how would we, indicate carbon criteria into product labeling. Not too long ago I read an interview conducted by GreenPower Conferences with Benjamin Casper, head of the European Commission’s EU Ecolabel team. When asked if the EU has plans to include specific amounts of carbon in its ecolabel, Benjamin responded:

We are looking into the possibility of more systematically introducing carbon related criteria into the Ecolabel, so that products bearing the label would have been compared to others in relation to carbon impact in the most significant areas of the products lifecycle, however this would not lead to details on specific figures on carbon being placed on products because making the calculations to provide accurate figures is proving almost impossibly complicated. Fundamentally we plan to stick with the rule that if you see the Ecolabel logo on a product, you can trust it to be one of the better products on the market in terms of environmental performance.

The Outside

To be consistent, companies must concern themselves with ensuring their products’ packaging is also sustainable. Was it designed to optimize materials? Which materials were used—ones that have been recycled and can go for another recycling spin? For logistics and transport, what about volume and weight? But there’s another side to this: will the ecopackaging and the ecolabel stand out on the shelf and attract shoppers to pick up the, let’s say ‘cookie box,’ consider a purchase, and then buy?

Even as consumers’ tastes change, a cookie box will still be one of many on a store shelf. It will always be in competition with dozens of others. The old-timey way to discern the best packaging was in focus groups. Gather a group of folks into an office or privatized store and get their feedback before finalizing packaging design. But is THIS sustainable? How many focus group sessions do you have to conduct, and in how many markets, before you can reach a final conclusion? And how many airplane flights (think carbon emissions) will it take?

There is another way. Virtual focus groups.

What if you can repurpose the 3D digital representation of your product by putting it into play in a virtual reality environment, and then invite consumers to test various ecopackaging scenarios in the comfort of their own homes, workplaces, and at their convenience? Imagine how much more feedback you can obtain, and at such a low impact!

There are lots of possibilities out there, and groups like ThinkBalm have developed entire communities to explore innovations with virtual worlds. They even have their meetings in places like Second Life. Through a joint venture called 3Dswym (swym = see what you mean), Dassault Systèmes and Publicis are leveraging the concept of virtual worlds to provide companies with software tools and services to conduct virtual focus groups.

I asked my colleague and one of the 3Dswym founders, Philippe Loeb, if he thinks companies are ready for virtual focus groups. Philippe said:

Virtual focus groups are emerging at a very particular time. Our clients are in indeed in front of a triple challenge: First, they need to continue to innovate for and also with consumers to match their rapidly changing expectations, like eco-packaging. In addition, many of them are in a position where they cannot afford multiple market failures. More than ever, they need to validate products’ potential by multiplying tests with consumers. Finally, they must at the same time control cost and the impact of overall product development, including testing and iteration loops. That’s why they see a growing interest in Virtual Focus groups. But for the time being, most of them still see it as a complement to traditional market research techniques.

There are some virtual packaging demos on the 3Dswym site that you can check out to get a feel.

Now that your minds are wrapped around ecopacaking and ecolabeling, I’d like to point out that the next post will be the last in our “What is Green PLM” series. I’m very pleased to introduce you to Jonathan Dutton, a former engine designer and now an automotive strategy guy for Dassault Systèmes. He’s going to wrap up our series with a post about sustainable transport. I think you’ll see the eco-warrior side of Mr. Dutton shine through; he’s passionate about his topic.

Best,

Kate

P.S. If you want to play an online teaser/game about sustainable marketing/packaging through a virtual shopping experience, go this CSR Europe page. In addition to the game, you’ll also find a free downloadable sustainable marketing guide. Both were developed in partnership with CSR Europe, BT, Dassault Systèmes, Danone, Sony and others.

A few weeks ago the European Union voted to phase out incandescent light bulbs entirely by 2012. The United States, Australia and Cuba are launching similar plans. If your household is anything like mine, you’ve already begun implementing a personal incandescent bulb phase-out plan, replacing your ‘last century lights’ with LED and other alternatives, in addition to, of course, doing what your mother always harped on during your childhood: “Turn off the lights!”

If you’re wondering what impact the new EU regulation will make, check out the energy-savings examples communicated in the Europa press release:

By enforcing the regulation of switching to energy saving bulbs, EU citizens will save close to 40 TWh (roughly the electricity consumption of Romania, or of 11 million European households, or the equivalent of the yearly output of 10 power stations of 500 megawatts) and will lead to a reduction of about 15 million tons of CO2 emission per year.

These figures demonstrate how the accumulation of people like you and me buying and using energy-efficient product innovations really can make a difference (i.e. new household lamp designs incorporating LED bulbs, like my nifty IKEA reading lamp—while the technology isn’t new, its inclusion into mainstream products is). Green PLM also plays a part.

In my last post of this series we looked at how companies are optimizing material usage in product design for a lighter environmental footprint. This in turn is linked to energy usage, because the lighter your car, the less fuel it consumes. But like our lights, products must also incorporate technologies to lighten their impact on the environment.

Now PLM doesn’t make technological innovations, people do. And sometimes we already have the right technologies but, for many different reasons, it’s difficult to get them executive-approved, produced and on the market. Take powertrains for example. Between automotive OEMs and their suppliers, the technology to increase fuel efficiency already exists. But because this knowledge is fragmented among different stakeholders dispersed around the globe and resides in various software systems, it’s quite difficult to get a holistic view of how this technology would impact pre-existing manufacturing infrastructures and other connected elements. So it’s tough to understand the full impact of switching to a different powertrain, and therefore tough to plan for this change. PLM 2.0 platforms like Dassault Systèmes’ V6 provide the digital environment to accomplish this.

What about when we haven’t yet nailed down the technology and are in the figuring-out phase? Well, why not use scientific simulation earlier in the design process? “Oh, ‘super idea’ X doesn’t get the type of results we wanted! Next!” You don’t have to waste downstream energy and time if you scientifically validate concepts early in the virtual design stage.

And when you’re working within a collaborative PLM 2.0 platform, you’re tapping into more collective brain power. Like I blogged in Design=Emotion=Day 2@ECF, “Creativity is individual, but innovation is collaborative.” It’s not some mad-scientist alone in his laboratory that’s going to help us make a difference. Together we’ll come up with solutions that we cannot dream up alone. Some people call this crowdsourcing. I call it working smart.

Do these things make PLM green? I’m not sure if this matters, because what counts are sustainable products and living. My take-away point is that PLM solutions can help companies boost innovation and develop, simulate, optimize and produce products that consume less energy.

Zooming out, I like to believe that we’re at the dawn of an energy-efficient era. I think that beyond our lights and cars, all of our everyday-living, energy-consuming products will get ‘retechnologicalized’ (if I may invent a word). What other examples can you think of? Solar-powered cell phones come to mind . . .

As an aside, I thought it’d be fun to share a product designed to help us be more mindful of our energy consumption. Check out Wattson

Best,

Kate

P.S. If you’re new to our Green PLM series, you may want to check out earlier posts:

• What is Green PLM?
• Do You Comply?
• Materials Optimization Cuisine